


Take to the Wing

by IceEckos12



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, OC, Raven!Neil, aftgreverse, andrew's unconventional negotiation methods, canon-typical unhealthy coping mechanisms, riko being himself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:20:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 68,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23143816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IceEckos12/pseuds/IceEckos12
Summary: Neil is not able to hold out until the end of Winter Break, and signs himself over to Edgar Allan. Trapped in the Raven's Nest, he fights for his right to exist.The Foxes are devastated at the loss of another member of their family. Beset upon by enemies at all sides, including from within, they begin to fracture even further. But all is not yet lost. After all, that which fractures only becomes stronger when it heals.
Relationships: Neil Josten & Jean Moreau, Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 267
Kudos: 497
Collections: AFTG Reverse Big Bang 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> okay guys, im SUPER excited to share this project with y'all. ive been working on it for several months, and im extremely proud of all the work that was put into it. 
> 
> first of all, id like to thank my artist, tigerjawed. their art was an inspiration, and their advice helped to shape this fic. second, id like to thank my beta, wishbonetea. without her, this fic would never have gotten as good as it is. and finally, id like to thank all of you for taking the time to read this little project of mine. i hope you enjoy reading it as much as i enjoyed writing it! 
> 
> ill be posting triggers at the beginning of each chapter, but there will be canon typical violence and references to canonical sexual abuse in this fic. please be aware of that.
> 
> and now: take for the wing!

**Neil**

> _"Neil," Wymack said._

> _Neil, Wymack called him, even when he looked like this, even with his father's face and his father's eyes and the Moriyamas' number on his face. Neil, Wymack called him, and more than anything Neil wanted it to be true. He stopped fighting to get free; the hands that had been trying to wrench Wymack's arms off him now held on for dear life._

> _"Help me," he said through gritted teeth._

> _"Let me," Wymack shot back, so Neil closed his eyes._

> _Wymack said nothing else until Neil's labored breathing finally smoothed out. "What the fuck happened? Last I heard you were spending Christmas with your uncle."_

> _"I lied," Neil said. "Andrew's coming back to us on Tuesday, all right? If Easthaven hasn't called Betsy yet to arrange his ride they will soon."_

> _"They called yesterday," Wymack said. "What does Andrew have to do with this?"_

> _"Everything that matters," Neil said._

> _"That's not an answer."_

> _"I'm sorry."_

> _…_

> _Wymack wrapped up Neil's wounds with fresh bandages, then reclaimed his chair. The pair sat in silence, Wymack watching Neil and Neil studying his hands. Neil fought with his uncooperative memory, trying to recall his stay at Evermore._

>   * _Nora Sakavic, The Raven King._
> 


And there, in Wymack’s uncomfortable chair, bent over his shaking hands, Neil remembers.

For a second he wonders if it’s a fever dream, just another nightmare mingled and among all the other nightmares. He’d certainly imagined himself doing it enough, just to make the pain stop, just to make Riko stop. There are a lot of things that he remembers that he’s not sure were real. There’s a lot of blank spots that he’s pretty sure he doesn’t want to remember.

Neil’s numb fingers find the inside lining of his jacket, pain shooting through his body as he moves. He doesn’t care, though, he has to know. He has to know for sure.

He pulls the contract out and stares at it, at the blood stain on the corner, at the sharpness of the white paper. It’s folded, he can’t see the signature, but he knows.

“I signed it,” Neil whispers, and feels his world tip sideways. The four burns like a brand on his cheek, and his fingers find the spot and press until it hurts.

“What’s that?” Wymack asks, sitting forward in his chair.

The paper runs through Neil’s fingers like smoke and flutters to the ground. He stares at it, his mind stuttering every time he thinks of his signature— _his freedom—_

Louder, Neil says, “I’m a Raven.”

Wymack freezes, his scowl set in his face like a slash through granite. He starts forward, pauses when Neil shies away, then takes a deep breath and reaches for the paper on the ground. Neil watches the whole process without thinking, without feeling, unable to reconcile.

No, he couldn’t have. He _didn’t._

But he had.

Wymack reads the little document once, twice, his expression getting stormier by the second. He lingers on the bloodstain, on the shaky signature, and then he closes his eyes in resignation.

He has to know that Neil was coerced, that it hadn’t been consensual, not really. He also knows that the Ravens don’t give a shit about such things, that all that matters is that Neil signed _._

Wymack swallows and folds the paper back up, though he looks as though he’d rather crumple it up and set it on fire. “You’re still a Fox,” he says firmly, sounding as though he’s reassuring himself as much as he is Neil.

Neil snorts, feeling wild and half-hysterical. Wymack scoots closer, steady as a rock even though his thoughts have to be turmoil.

It’s because of that, that stability, that Neil reaches out and snags the sleeve of Wymack’s shirt between his fingers. He’s shaken, and his thoughts are still doing somersaults, and he can’t think past the fear of that place, of _Edgar Allan._ His memories are still fuzzy, but he does remember darkness, and the pain, and Riko standing above it all, ready to strike at the first sign of disobedience.

“Help me,” he pleads through gritted teeth, echoing himself from earlier. It was less than ten minutes ago. It feels like a lifetime.

For one second, the stolid expression on Wymack’s face disappears, replaced with helplessness, despair, and the knowledge that he can’t do a thing. He gently lays his hand over Neil’s, and it’s the first kind touch he’s had in weeks.

“This can wait until the morning, Neil,” Wymack tells him.

The compassion in his voice slams Neil back to reality.

He shakily pulls back and looks Wymack in the eye and attempts to rebuild some of his walls. He doesn’t want to have to force Wymack tell him that he can’t do anything, that Neil was a lost cause the second he stepped into the Nest. He has to...to be fine with this. He doesn’t want to make this any more difficult than it already is.

 _Fuck._ He has to apologize to Kevin, now. He should have listened.

“No. I have a flight in four hours,” he tells Wymack dully. “I have to pack.”

Wymack’s expression shudders again and his hands twitch, like it’s all he can do not to spirit Neil away where Edgar Allen can never touch him again. “No, they can’t do that. Can’t you stay until the start of the semester?”

Neil folds his arms around himself. “No, the mas—Tetsuji was adamant that I continue with Raven training.”

Wymack hesitates for a moment, emotions warring on his face, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. Then he rises to his feet so fast that Neil can’t help but flinch again, and strides into the kitchen. It’s quiet for a second, but then there’s the sound of shattering glass and the heavy thuds of a booted foot impacting wood.

Then Wymack comes back into the living room and runs a tired hand over his face. “Guess that’s that, then.”

Neil bites his lip and offers, “Sorry, Coach.”

Wymack wheels on him and grabs his shoulders, half lifting him out of the seat. His hands eclipse Neil’s skinny bones and his eyes are bright, almost like he’s about to start crying. The sight of it leaves Neil speechless.

“Don’t you dare apologize,” Wymack tells him. “You survive the season and then you come back to us, understand? You come back home. You’re still a Fox, okay?”

Neil bites his lip and bows his head, and tries to tamp down the burning pressure in his eyes and his throat.

He doesn’t respond.

Several hours later, Wymack helps him unload his stuff from the car, grim and perfunctory. Not that there’s much to help with. He looks like he’s trying very hard not to think about it, just the same as Neil.

Neil had refused to let him contact Abby or Betsy before he left. He can barely tolerate Wymack’s eyes on him, his poorly-hidden grief. He doesn’t want to make it any worse, and he hates goodbyes anyway.

Wymack looks at him, then reaches up and scrubs the back of his neck. “So this is it, then.”

Neil hooks his thumb around his duffle bag. “Yeah.”

They’re silent for a second.

Then Wymack says, “Call us, if you can. You’ll always have a home here.”

The thought unexpectedly makes tears burn in the back of his eyes. He blinks them away, feeling two inches tall. “Yeah.”

Then he turns and strides into the airport, because if he stays here any longer he’ll do something stupid, like start running in the other direction. Or beg Wymack for help, which would be pointless as well as undignified.

The trip through security is quick but agonizing; there’s too many people around him, and it’s making him feel trapped. By the time he spills out into the main concourse he’s shaken and sweating, and judging from the odd looks security is giving him he looks a little wild around the edges. He ducks his head and hurries toward the screens that show when his flight is going to leave, clutching his duffel closer to him.

His flight’s on time. Pity.

He gets there with a couple of minutes to spare, but doesn’t sit in one of the open seats. Instead he folds himself against a wall and tucks his bag to his side, unwilling to leave his back exposed.

He tosses the phone in his hand back and forth, back and forth, feeling the nicks and cracks in the smooth plastic body. He wonders if Riko will let him keep it. He sincerely doubts it.

They call out the first boarding class, then the second, and then Neil’s. He shuffles into line, tries not to feel like everyone is staring at him, with his bruised face and his nervous eyes. He gets waved through though, and is soon sliding into his assigned seat. Putting his duffel bag in the overhead makes him itchy, but he can’t fit it under the seat no matter how hard he shoves.

Finally, Neil opens his phone and stares at the screen. The flight attendant is telling them that they need to put their phones into airplane mode, so he knows he only has minutes before the plane takes off. Plus, his battery is critically low.

This might be the last time he can communicate with the Foxes. The thought sends terror rolling through him once more, as it does every time he has some reminder of his near future.

He takes a deep breath, taps out one last group message, and hits send. He only hopes that he Foxes will one day forgive him.

_Happy New Year._

He’s so exhausted that he sleeps through the whole flight. He wishes he hadn’t though, just because he knows it’ll be the last time he’ll get such a clear view of the sky in a long time. Riko has promised that he won’t be starting for at least a few months, which means he won’t be leaving the Nest for a couple of months.

 _You’ll be helping us win against the Foxes in the championships, if they get that far,_ Riko had told him, a smug smirk on his face. _Let’s see how well you can mark against the second best Exy player, hm?_

Then Neil had told him that Kevin was actually the _first_ best Exy player, and things got kind of fuzzy after that.

He tugs his duffel down from the overhead, wincing when it lands heavily on top of him, and heads toward the front of the plane. He shies away from the friendly, false smiles of the crew, clutching his bag to his chest like a shield. He’s twice as aware of the fact that he’s in unfamiliar territory, surrounded by enemies on all sides with no backdoor to escape through.

This is it.

Neil hesitates outside of Arrivals. His whole being is protesting at the idea of going back to the Nest, which has already succeeded in breaking him once already. He’s not sure how he’s going to survive months more of this.

He shivers and wraps his arms around himself to ward off the cold.

He’ll survive, as he always does. He is, more than anything else, a survivor.

He takes a deep breath, forces his arms down to his sides again. He doesn’t want to give any hint of the fear he’s feeling.

Riko and Jean are waiting in Arrivals this time, and Neil’s steps stutter at the sight before he can get ahold of himself. Riko notices the hesitation of course, and the slow, smug smile that crosses his face makes Neil want to throw up.

“Welcome back,” Riko says.

Jean stares deeply into his face, eyes dark and sad, and then looks away without a word. He takes no satisfaction in being right, that Neil should never have come. Neil is pathetically grateful for it.

He ducks his head and says nothing, and almost bites his own tongue off in shock when Riko grabs his chin and _lifts._

“I said, _welcome back.”_ Riko stares directly into his eyes, a wolf asserting dominance.

Neil has vivid memories of being forced to look up into his eyes as blood runs down his heaving, bruised sides. The stitches he’d accidentally tore at Wymack’s ache sharply, like he’s injured himself all over again.

He looks away first. Mutters, “Thanks.”

Riko lets go and walks away, apparently satisfied with that half-hearted answer. Jean gives Neil a quick, unreadable look before following. Neil hunches into his shoulders, wondering if it’s too late to run away, before sighing and hurrying after them.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> very brief references to proust, if you want to skip the paragraph, it starts with "He goes about his business..."

**Andrew**

“Your friends are here to pick you up.”

Andrew lifts his head from the Rubix Cube he’s been fiddling with. He’s not actually interested in completing it, but it’s better than having nothing while his fingers have been itching for a smoke.

Dr. Slosky gives him a nervous smile, hand resting awkwardly on the doorframe. He’s one of the less annoying doctors in the facility, but he’s got the unfortunate attribute of being easy to scare, which means he’s terrified of Andrew. Andrew thinks that he’d like that, if he could bring himself to care.

He tosses the Rubix Cube to the sheets and gets up, slinging his bag over his shoulder. Slosky’s eyes follow the motion, and his eyebrows draw together. “You’re not keeping it?”

Andrew raises his eyebrows but says nothing. Slosky shifts, then shakes his head and holds out a clipboard. “You just need to sign out, and then you’re free.”

Andrew wants to laugh at that, but just takes the clipboard and writes a big  _ X  _ over the signature. Slosky frowns, like he’s thinking about telling Andrew to sign properly, but clearly decides that discretion is the better part of valor and says nothing.

Andrew walks out into the waiting room, and three people turn to look at him.  _ Three. _

Neil Josten isn’t there.

Andrew walks past the group, out into the parking lot and into the sunlight, and there’s Kevin, Nicky, Aaron, at his heels but—

He double checks, just to make sure. Just to make sure there isn’t some smart-mouthed, gorgeous coward leaning against the car waiting for him, hair glinting gold in the sunlight.

_ Right then, _ Andrew thinks, and he should feel vindicated because he was right, Neil was just some figment of his imagination,  _ he was never real, _ but—

He just feels cold, like someone’s sucked all the color out of the world. He’s still in the vicinity of this hellhole, Proust waved him goodbye, and  _ Neil was never real. _

He goes about his business, dumps out the clothes that Bee had bought him ( _ he’ll never get that shade or the feel of the fabric and the way it overlaps with Proust’s creeping smile out of his head, but at least he can get it out of his life _ ), gives Kevin a quick once over just to make sure he’s whole and healthy. Holds his hand out for the keys, which Nicky hastily deposits into the palm of his hand.

He climbs into the front seat of the car, his fingers twitching. The others give each other worried looks like they think he can’t see them, but quickly slide into their respective seats.  _ There’s a space in the middle of the back seat where Neil used to sit, glaring from underneath a fringe of raucous curls, _ Andrew thinks, and hates himself for it.

He wonders, idly, if Kevin and the others entertained his delusions of another person, or if they only ever spoke in his head. He doesn’t think he’d be able to tell the difference. The months he was on the drugs are just a blurry haze of too-bright memories that may or may not be real.

“Andrew—” Nicky tries, because he’s never been very smart.

“Shhh,” Andrew says. Nicky wilts in the rearview mirror, and even Kevin looks vaguely alarmed. “Shhhhh.”

They ride back to Palmetto State in silence. Andrew’s forgotten what the drive was like without the film of toxin over his vision, and at least he knows what’s real, now. He can see the world in its true, natural colors, not the sickening kaleidoscope of images which have characterized the past few months.

If nothing else, that place was good for that.

After ten minutes, Nicky finally breaks.

“You’re not even going to ask?” he bursts out, weirdly furious.

“Nicky,” Aaron hisses, grabbing Nicky’s arm.

“No!” Nicky draws himself up. Andrew watches the sudden bravery from the corner of his eye with dull interest. “No. Neil is  _ gone  _ and he’s not saying anything!”

Then, as if Nicky hasn’t just dropped an anvil and shattered Andrew’s drug-free reality, Nicky rounds forward and says, “Don’t you want to know why he’s gone?”

Andrew doesn’t think.

He stomps on the breaks and pulls the wheel hard to the right, sending the passengers careening against the doors, against each other. The person on the road behind them honks as they scream past, and then there’s silence, except for terrified, heavy breathing.

Then Andrew puts the car into park.

“What the hell—” Kevin snaps, terrified, but Andrew hushes him with a wave of his hand.

“Neil?” He asks as casually as he can, like he doesn’t actually care about the answer. Like a liar.

_ He was never supposed to be real. _

“...Neil went to Edgar Allan over Winter break.” Kevin says after a second, avoiding Andrew’s eyes. “Riko threatened you—I don’t know with what, but it was enough to get Neil to Edgar Allan.”

He falls silent, and no one seems willing to pick up the thread that Kevin’s dropped.

Oh.

_ Not just a side effect of the drugs, then. _

Andrew flexes his fingers around the steering wheel. “And?”

“He never came back,” Kevin says in a rush. “They—it was bad. What they did to him... it was really bad. He couldn’t hold out long enough. He signed the contract.”

Andrew breathes out low and slow, and feels a sudden, vicious stab of fury that just as quickly sinks into the mire of his thoughts. Neil was so close, Andrew was so close to seeing him without the film of drugs, without the uncertainty of his reality. And Riko  _ fucking _ Moriyama just had to steal the enigma right out from under his nose. For that matter, Neil  _ fucking _ Josten was stupid enough to think that doing shit for Riko and his family would get him anywhere other than pinned beneath their feet.

Andrew does not think about bruises and scars threading Neil’s whole body, about that defiant glare losing strength until it’s only a pale shade of what it was. He can’t...he can’t think about what else he feels toward that coward, not when he’s forgotten how to feel at all.

“Okay,” Andrew says, puts the car in drive, and eases them back onto the road.

Okay.

* * *

**Wymack**

Today is the day that Dan gets back from Winter break. Wymack lets out a sigh and ducks his head, feeling a million years older than he had before Neil Josten said,  _ “I’m a Raven.” _

This is going to devastate her. Seth in the Fall, Andrew after Thanksgiving, Neil in the Winter...it feels like they’re losing their team one by one. At least they’re getting Andrew back, though Wymack doesn’t know in what capacity. Who knows what he’ll be like off the drugs? At least he knows that the Monsters are still alive; he got a text from Kevin yesterday.

Wymack lets out a sigh. Then he pulls out his phone, and sends out a text to three people.

He gets almost immediate responses from Dan and Matt, two affirmations that makes his chest feel tight. He feels like a liar.

Kevin calls him, though.

“We need to talk about Neil,” Wymack says heavily. “I’ll explain when you get here.”

“I already know. Riko sent me a picture.”

Wymack pauses. Because  _ that  _ implies—“Did you know where he was all Winter break?”

Kevin doesn’t respond, which tells him everything he needs to know. Wymack curses under his breath, for a moment so furious that he wants to wring Kevin’s neck. He could have  _ stopped  _ this from happening.  _ They could have done something before it was too late. _

“You should have seen him when he came back,” And Wymack knows that it’s harsh, knows that it isn’t fair, but he wants Kevin to know what happened to Neil Josten. He wants Kevin to know  _ exactly  _ the kind of damage he did. “He was bruised to hell and back, he could barely stand. Whatever the fuck they did to him, it wasn’t pretty.”

“I know,” Kevin says faintly, his voice a mere tremble of sound, and repeats, “Riko sent me a picture.”

Wymack immediately feels like a massive jerk.

“Just…” He sighs, and runs his hand through his hair. “Just come to my office in two hours, I need to fill in Matt and Dan.”

“Why do you need me there?” Kevin asks, voice slightly stronger than before. He still sounds shaken.

_ “You  _ can explain where he went,” Wymack snaps in response, and hangs up before he says something that he’ll regret.

A couple of hours later, Dan and Matt stride into the office. Kevin is already there, has been bowed over his knees in the chair next to Wymack’s desk for almost ten minutes now. Neither of them have spoken, too tense to even attempt a conversation.

Dan immediately notices something is wrong, pauses in the doorway and frowns at the two of them as they lift their heads and look at her. Matt is a step behind her, a worried crease on his brow.

“Hey,” Matt says anxiously. “Is this about Neil?”

Of course he’s worried. He got back from break to find his roommate gone, the monsters unwilling to talk. Wymack wishes that he could alleviate his worry, but he can’t.

“We need to talk,” Wymack says to Dan, ignoring Matt, who only looks sick at the brush-off. Dan slowly walks forward and stops in front of the desk. “You might want to sit for this.”

“I’ll stand,” Dan says, lifting her chin.  _ God,  _ she looks so strong. She has no idea.

“Coach, where’s Neil?” Matt asks insistently. There’s not enough room for him to stand next to Dan, but he lays a hand over her shoulder, probably for her comfort as much as his own. Without looking at him, she puts her hand over his and squeezes back. They know it’s bad. They may not know what it is, but they’ve got to know that it’s bad.

The next person who speaks, shockingly, is Kevin.

He sits upright, back stiff-straight. His words are clipped and emotionless, trying to distance himself. “Neil went to Edgar Allan over Winter break. They got to him. He’s a Raven.”

There’s dead silence.

“...what?” Matt breathes.

Wymack decides to take over. Kevin looks fit to shatter.

“He came back for a couple hours to get his stuff, but then he had to leave. He looked…” He presses his lips together as he remembers those pale, bruised blue eyes, that skittishness. Neil Josten has never been easy to scare, but Wymack’s every move had been met with a flinch and a wary, guarded face. “...they forced him to sign. He didn’t have any other choice.”

“You let him go,” Dan says faintly. Matt is a solid presence at her left shoulder, Kevin is a shadow in the chair, pale and wan, motionless.

“I didn’t have a choice,” Wymack repeats, already knowing that it’s not enough. She’s never going to forgive him for this.

Kevin sways forward, his gaze glassy, looking as though a strong gust of wind could blow him over. He must know that what Wymack says is true, knows that the Moriyamas shut the door and threw away the key on whatever they used to trap Neil. He knows the family. It doesn’t make the impact of it any easier.

Then, unexpectedly, Dan erupts. Wymack has always known that she was fierce—she’s had to be, to have survived on this team as long as she has—but she’s never turned that ferocity on him. “Bull _ shit!  _ You had him  _ right in front of you  _ and you  _ let him go!” _

Wymack’s face twists. She’s right, of course she is, but he had a  _ signed contract. _ He says, “Neil signed the contract. If I’d tried to fight it, Edgar Allen would’ve tied us up in so much red tape we probably wouldn’t have been able to play at all.”

Dan’s not having it, though. Her eyes are glittering with unshed tears of betrayal, and all the broken pieces of her are sharp enough to cut. “So all that crap about caring for us, how we’re Foxes, that meant nothing to you, right? The second things get hard you just give up?”

Wymack says nothing. It’s what he deserves.

“I can’t keep losing my Foxes,” Dan spits, beautiful in her righteousness. “I won’t.”

Then she turns around and leaves. Matt gives Wymack an unreadable look before turning to follow, and it’s such a marked change from his usual affable demeanor that something clenches in Wymack’s chest.

Kevin stands there, still glassy-eyed and swaying, twice as vulnerable now that Dan has taken all the energy out of the room. Wymack gets up and approaches this boy, this boy who he’s cared for and yelled at and did his best to build back up into someone who could shake the Exy world down to its knees.

“Kevin?” Wymack asks, putting a hand over his shoulder. He wishes he’d known how badly Neil’s leaving would affect the other boy. He might have been less of a dick about the whole thing.

Awareness slams back into Kevin’s face like a lightning bolt. The vulnerability vanishes from his face like it never had been, and he shakes off the hand with the haughty air he usually affects around the Foxes.

“I told him,” Kevin says matter-of-factly, and his composure is so forced it makes Wymack wince. “I did tell him.”

Wymack wants to tell Kevin that maybe this wouldn’t have happened at all if he’d been told in the  _ first place,  _ but he forces the thought down. There is a time and a place for placing blame, and this is not that time. The effects of this are too new, too fresh; who knows what damage they will cause.

There’s still Andrew to consider, after all.

“I’m sorry, Kevin, okay?” Wymack tries.

Kevin looks at him sharply. “You couldn’t do anything. You said it yourself.”

And really, Wymack can’t argue with that.

Kevin watches him for another moment, before shaking his head and striding out of the room. Wymack watches him go, feeling as though there was another conversation going on underneath all that, a conversation which he fucked up miserably.


	3. Chapter 3

**Neil**

Neil is halfway through the door of Riko and Kevin’s room when Jean grabs his shoulder and shoves him away from the door.

“We’re roommates now. Follow me,” Jean tells him flatly, and then keeps striding down the hall.

Neil gives Riko’s room, the one he’s been sleeping in for the past couple of weeks, an owlish blink before hiking his bag higher over his shoulder and hurrying after Jean. When he catches up he asks, “Why?”

It’s not that he’s sad to be moving out from under Riko’s nose. On the contrary, he’s relieved that he’ll be sharing a space with Jean, his only (albeit uncertain) ally in the Nest. But he _is_ confused—doesn’t Riko want to keep a close eye on Neil? Everyone in the world knows how much of a flight risk he is.

Jean scoffs, and his voice is hard and mocking as he says, “Did you think you would be allowed to share with the King forever? Don’t be ridiculous. Now that you are an official Raven you will _act_ like it, and that means rooming with the rest of us.”

“Oh,” Neil says thoughtfully, and falls silent.

Jean takes him into the room, and it doesn’t look much different from Riko’s except for the decor. There’s two beds and two desks shoved against either wall. One desk is clear except for a faded burn mark on the surface, while the other piled neatly with papers. Neil drops his duffel bag on the desk with the burn mark.

_“You can take the one on the left,”_ Jean says, the French falling naturally from his mouth now that they’re in a private location.

Neil drops his stuff onto the bed, unzips his duffel and looks down into his meager possessions, frowning when he notices that he accidentally stuffed his old Columbia outfits in when he wasn’t paying attention.

His hand finds the spine of his binder, and the fond exasperation in his chest turns to ice.

“Jean,” he says quietly, not looking up. _“Do you know the best place to hide something?”_

Jean leans against his desk casually, and Neil can feel dark eyes boring into his face. _“Depends on what it is,”_ he says coolly, _“And what I’ll be getting in return.”_

Neil finally looks up, glaring. _“You know I have nothing that I can offer you.”_

Jean shrugs, looks away, and _oh,_ he already knows what he wants. He’s been waiting for this. _“It’s not material possessions that I’m interested in.”_

Neil sighs gustily through his nose, and debates how much he wants this binder hidden. In the end, he knows it would be catastrophic if he lost it; this binder is full of things that are worth more than just his life. Who knows what Riko would do with his contacts. _“Fine. What do you want?”_

_“I want your cooperation,”_ Jean says ruthlessly, eyes gleaming. _“Behave. Keep us from getting in trouble, and I’ll happily hide whatever it is for you.”_

Neil grits his teeth. The idea of submitting to Riko, of playing at subservience, makes him want to punch something. But he looks at Jean, and his eyes find the bruise peeking out from over the top of his collar. It’s there because Neil can’t keep his mouth shut around Tetsuji and Riko.

So he bites down on his indignation and says, _“You’ll need to sweeten the deal if you want a favor that big.”_

And, just like Neil was a couple of seconds ago, Jean is instantly on the defensive. He favors Neil with a wary look, full of mistrust, and says, _“What is it you want?”_

_“I need access to a phone,”_ Neil says. Riko had taken his phone in the car and made a show of snapping it in front of his face. _“I made a promise with someone at Palmetto, and they’re crazy enough to follow through.”_

Jean’s obviously curious about the nature of both the person and the promise, but not enough to actually ask. He shakes his head and says flatly, _“All of our communications are monitored, and you and I lack the privacy to make a call. You know this.”_

_“That’s bullshit,”_ Neil responds, raising an eyebrow. _“You may act like the Moriyama’s perfect pet, but you and I know that’s not quite true.”_

Case in point, they wouldn’t be speaking French if Jean followed Riko’s every order to the letter.

Jean gives him a poisonous look, but even he knows better than to deny it. He wavers for a couple of seconds, and Neil can see it on his face—he’s weighing the risks against the rewards, trying to figure out if Neil’s compliance is worth it.

Then he scowls ferociously. _“Not now. Practice starts in ten minutes. Wait until after then.”_

Neil nods shortly back.

Practice is predictable in that Riko immediately takes the time to gloat in front of the entire team. Because he’s a bastard like that.

“Josten was so sure he was going home at the end of the break,” Riko says, smirking. Neil keeps his head lifted and his eyes facing directly ahead to hide the shame that’s curling in his stomach. “We see how well that turned out.”

There’s a smattering of chuckles from the Ravens, but most are just glaring out of the corners of their eyes, at the black four on his cheek, the number on his shirt. The number four has been left empty for years, and Neil knows that many Ravens worked themselves to the ground trying to get Riko’s attention, to see if they could become worthy of the role.

They’re insanely jealous of him and the spot they feel like he didn’t earn. Neil knows they’re going to be twice as bad as they were over break, when they thought he was just a temporary interloper. The worst part is that he never even _wanted_ to wear this number, fourth of the perfect court, or whatever twisted fantasy Riko is dreaming up.

Neil opens his mouth to respond, but abruptly stops when Jean stomps down hard on his foot. He glances over, and Jean shakes his head minutely. He can almost hear Jean saying, _the deal._

Neil closes his mouth and scowls darkly at the floor. It rankles to keep his mouth shut when Riko is taunting him like this, leaving him wide open for retaliation, but Jean’s right. If he wants his binder hidden, if he wants that phone call with Andrew, he’s going to have to play by Jean’s rules.

Riko crowds into his face, his smirk wide and dangerous, taunting. He’s so eager for a reaction that it almost makes him sick. “Where’s all of your bravado?”

Neil stares him down, deeply unimpressed. Beside him, Jean is so tense he’s practically tying himself in knots.

After a couple of seconds, Riko seems to realize that he’s not going to get what he wants. His face twists, and he rears back his arm and punches Neil in the stomach. It’s not a particularly hard hit, but it _is_ shocking, and Neil takes a couple of steps backward. Jean grabs his arm and hauls him back to his spot in line, hissing something inaudible under his breath.

Neil supposes that he’s lucky that Riko is already turning away, shouting at the other Ravens to get a move on with warmups. It means he misses the acidic look that Neil is wearing, the way his fists have clenched so tight that the knuckles have turned white.

Practice goes as well as it usually does. Neil is exhausted by the end of it, and he feels blood oozing sluggishly from the popped stitches at his side. He and Jean get the court cleaned up, and by the time they get to the showers the locker room is empty. Neil sits under the shower spray as long as Jean will let him.

Riko isn’t there when they get back to the room, which is both a surprise and a relief. He supposes that it’s no longer necessary to tear him to pieces every day, now that he’s officially a Raven. The thought of him submitting to Riko, bending to his will like Kevin or Jean were forced to, is enough to make him feel sick.

But that could also be attributed to the fact that his stitches burst and he’s been running nonstop for the past several hours.

_“Give it here,”_ Jean says. _“Also, get off my bed.”_

“Hm?” Neil asks from where he’s been curled on the lower bunk.

Jean rolls his eyes and holds out his hand. _“Our deal? You wanted me to hide something. I’ll make sure Riko can’t find it.”_

Neil slowly gets to his feet and limps across the room, before dumping out his duffel bag. He disentangles the binder from his clothes and toiletries and holds it out, but doesn’t let go when Jean closes his fingers around it.

_“I want this back at some point,”_ he says warningly.

_“Duly noted,”_ Jean responds dryly. _“Hand it over.”_

That binder has been Neil’s world for years now. It’s been the only thing that has remained constant; he has memories of carefully pasting in newspapers clippings when he was a child, flipping through each page and rubbing the corners like a good luck charm. It was with him when they ran, it was with him when his mom died. Everyone who’s ever been important to him has laid hands on it.

Neil takes a deep breath, then another.

Then he lets go.

Jean gives him an inscrutable look, like Neil gave away more in those couple of seconds than he meant to. Then he looks out the door and disappears into the hallway, quick and wraithlike.

Neil doesn’t mean to fall asleep, but what feels like a couple of seconds later Jean is shaking him awake.

_“You have five minutes,”_ Jean tells him, and shoves something into his hand.

“What?” Neil mutters, and then he realizes what he’s holding. He stares down at the phone in his hand numbly. “Oh.”

And then he’s back in Palmetto State, the Foxes voices echoing in his ears like a siren song. He’s holding a link to the Foxes. It feels like Jean has just given him the whole world.

He’s on a time limit though, and he couldn’t afford to waste it on pointless calls, even if he did know their numbers. He types in the only one he _does_ know, the one he was forced to memorize after that horrendous debacle in Columbia.

Nicky picks up after the first couple of rings, and his voice is harried when he says,“Hello?”

“Nicky,” Neil says with a sigh of relief. “Hi.”

There’s a moment of silence. Then, tone full of disbelief, _“Neil?”_

“Nicky,” He says quickly, to cut off any chance of the over exuberant man using all five minutes. “I need to talk to Andrew. I’m on a time limit.”

Nicky doesn’t say anything for a second.

“Nicky?” He prompts, glancing at Jean, who’s plastered to the door, staring through the peephole for any passing Ravens.

“Right,” Nicky says. “I’ll just—get him for you. But—but are you okay?”

Oh god, small talk. Neil wants to groan. “I’m fine.”

“Right.” Nicky mutters again. There’s a clattering sound in the background like a door is opening and closing. Then, “Here, Andrew. He wants to talk to you.”

Neil waits a couple of seconds, then hisses “Andrew,” as loud as he dares. Jean gives him an anxious look that belies his prickly demeanor, and puts his eye to the peephole again. They don’t have much time.

It’s quiet on the other end of the phone, and for a second Neil worries that he got the wrong person. Then Andrew says, low and blank, “Neil.”

Neil breathes out a sigh of relief, and tightens his fingers around the bandages on his arm. The pain is grounding. “Andrew. Are you alright?”

“I thought you told me that you weren’t a Raven,” he responds instead of answering, and the accusing note in his voice makes Neil wince.

“I had to. He was—he threatened you. I had—I couldn’t—” His head bows over his legs, painted black and blue and sickly yellow. He wishes he could see Andrew’s face. “...did Proust…”

Andrew is quiet for another moment. Then, “You’re an idiot.”

And just like that, Neil knows. He lets out a soft, involuntary moan and buries his head into his hand, feels the tears he’s been holding back well up in his eyes. It wasn’t enough. He is here in the Nest, and _it wasn’t enough_.

He supposes he shouldn’t be surprised. He’s gotten to know Riko a lot better over the past few weeks.

“Hey,” Andrew snaps, the first sign of emotion he’s shown since picking up the call. “Breathe.”

Neil chokes on a few desperate, whistling breaths. He hadn’t even realized that he’d stopped.

Jean makes a few frantic motions with his hands, worry plainly etched in his sharp face. Neil waves two fingers. Two more minutes. There’s something he needs to say before he plunges back into the darkness and the nebulous reality of the Nest.

“I want you to break your promise,” Neil says urgently.

“What.” Andrew says flatly.

“I don’t have much time,” he says, just shy of begging. “I don’t need your protection anymore, so I want you to break your promise.”

Andrew doesn’t even think about it. “No.”

And that is enough to push Neil over the edge, because he knows that Andrew means it. He’ll march into the Nest and slit Riko’s throat if it means keeping his promise, and Neil can’t have that, not after he signed himself to the Nest to keep Andrew safe.

_Which didn’t even work._

“I can’t do anything for you anymore,” Neil whispers, his body coiling tight as a spring. He’s vaguely aware of Jean staring at him, but he can’t bring himself to care. “You need to stay safe. You need to stay with the Foxes and Kevin. You need to help them _win.”_

“You’re not my keeper,” Andrew snarls, edged with broken glass.

And then Neil throws down his trump card. “Andrew. _Please.”_

He knows that Andrew hates that word, and considering what little he knows about Drake, he has a few tentative, unsettling suspicions as to why. Andrew knows that he knows that he hates that word, and if he wouldn’t use it if he wasn’t serious.

Andrew is quiet for a second, and the silence that stretches between them is a million-mile void, an impassable distance. Neil tries to imagine what Andrew is doing; is he in practice? Is he in his car, or taking a smoke outside, tipping the ashes carelessly to the ground?

“Fine,” Andrew says, and hangs up.

* * *

**Kevin**

Kevin drags his finger around the rim of the bottle of vodka he’s drinking. He’s trying to stop thinking, but it’s not _working._ He’s been trying to stop thinking ever since Wymack—

God, his _father—_

He hauls back the bottle and slugs back another mouthful, letting the burn distract him from the pain of remembering that Nathaniel is at the Nest, that Nathaniel is with Riko, a four blazing away on his cheek. A permanent brand of ownership.

...where he was supposed to be from the start.

Kevin wants to scream, because if Neil, defiant and untouchable Neil, couldn’t resist the Nest, then what chance does he have? Maybe he should just go back to the Nest. If he gives himself up, Tetsuji and Riko might go easy on him.

_Coward,_ a voice that sounds like Neil and Andrew combined tells him, and he shudders. _Are you really going to give up now?_

The idea of Tetsuji and Riko’s disapproval is enough to make him nauseous, though. He hasn’t even had that much, and he still wants to throw up everything he has in his stomach. Did he eat lunch? He doesn’t remember.

Then, some instinct tickles the back of his brain, and he looks up.

Andrew is standing in front of him, one side of his lip curled in disgust. He’s half cast in shadow, half bathed in the street lights streaming through the windows. Kevin blinks sluggishly up at him in surprise.

Then, before Kevin can get his wits about him, Andrew is holding the bottle of vodka and walking toward the bathroom.

“H-Hey!” Kevin shouts, lumbering to his feet. “Andrew—stop, I said—grk!”

His last word is cut off by Andrew jamming the neck of the bottle under his chin.

“You need to pull yourself together,” Andrew tells him, matter-of-fact.

“What?” Kevin asks stupidly.

Andrew grits his teeth, eyes glittering, though Kevin can’t tell if it’s the street lights or something else.

Then he says, as though every word is being dragged from his soul, “I need your help.”

Kevin gapes at him, dumbstruck.

Andrew presses the bottle further into his throat. “I can’t get Neil out of there by myself.”

That snaps Kevin to attention like nothing else can. He surges forward and catches Andrew’s collar, too drunk to realize what a terrible idea that is. “You have a plan to get him out?”

Andrew grabs Kevin’s hands and _squeezes_ until he finally lets go, swearing and clutching his abused fingers.

“Don’t touch me again,” Andrew says. He pauses, then reluctantly adds, “And no. I wouldn’t be asking you for help if I had one.”

Kevin stares at Andrew thoughtfully as he rubs the last of the pain from his hands. It wasn’t as though he’d thought that they were just going to abandon Neil, but...he hadn’t thought that Andrew was going to make an attempt to get him _out._

“I thought you said you didn’t care about him,” Kevin says experimentally.

“I don’t.” Andrew scowls like he’s thinking about all the things he can do and has done with his knives. Kevin’s courage withers and backs off.

“Okay,” He says quickly. “I still don’t understand why you need my help.”

“I don’t like to repeat myself,” Andrew says. “I can’t get Neil out on my own. I need your help.”

“I can’t even protect _myself_ from Riko.” The name that trips over his tongue is followed by a wave of pain and revulsion. He eyes the vodka hanging limply from Andrew’s hand. “What makes you think I can get Neil back?”

“Kevin Day,” Andrew snaps, shaking the bottle in his face. Kevin goes cross-eyed trying to keep it in his view. “You’re better than that parasite, so stop being a coward.”

Kevin is actually struck speechless. Not that Andrew called Kevin a coward, that’s normal. But for Andrew to actually say that he was better than Riko…

But he’s scared. _Fuck,_ he’s so scared. He wants to wrap himself around the bottle of vodka and bury himself in his blankets, pretend that the rest of the world doesn’t exist. With Andrew standing there though, actually asking for his help, he feels like…

If Andrew can sacrifice like that, then maybe Kevin can do the same.

He swallows once, twice, though the second one is significantly more difficult than the first. His voice catches when he says, “Okay.”

Andrew relaxes, a tension that Kevin hadn’t even noticed until it’d left him. He nods, short and sharp, and then leaves Kevin alone in the dark.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> today i would like to cast riko as: himself
> 
> aka some warnings for riko torturing neil, if you want to skip the paragraph, it starts with "that night" under neil's pov

**Wymack**

Wymack stares out over his team, and has to force down a long, tired sigh. Dan still won’t look at him, and Kevin’s clinging as close to Andrew’s side as he can without actually touching him. And Andrew…

Well. If Wymack thought Dan would never forgive him, Andrew is definitely planning to murder someone in their sleep. He’s twice as unsettling now as he was when he was on the drugs—he’s no longer a mad dog, a bullet one can point and shoot and cause unmitigated destruction with. He’s focused and present and  _ unpredictable _ , and he’s out for blood.

Wymack just hopes it’s not his.  _ Christ. _

“Pay attention,” he says sharply. The only one who puts up a pretence of interest is Renee, but she’s always been a forgiving one. “I’m introducing your new teammate.”

“Our  _ what?”  _ Aaron snaps.

“We don’t want a new teammate,” Dan says from her corner, dark and vicious as a lightning storm. She doesn’t say,  _ We want Neil back,  _ but she doesn’t need to.

Wymack has had enough of this bullshit. He’s explained himself, and  _ yes  _ he feels bad about it, but he’s not going to keep apologizing for something out of his control. “Too bad. You’re getting one anyway. Joshua!”

The new kid steps into the office, and Kevin actually does a full body flinch.

“Coach,” Kevin whispers hoarsely, “That’s a—”

Dark brown hair that’s styled back over his head. Brown eyes so pale that they’re almost gold. A black and red Edgar Allan sweatshirt which fits to his tall frame like it was molded onto him.

Joshua certainly acts like a Raven. He takes one look at the hostile room, the glares of Dan, Allison, Aaron, and Nicky, and sneers back at them. He doesn’t say anything out loud, but the contemptuous curl of his lip is enough to tell them exactly what he thinks of them.

“Meet Joshua Graham.” Wymack says. “He’s a transfer from Egdar Allan.”

For one perfect moment there’s complete and utter silence. Forget a pin; it seems as though one can hear the suddenly increased heartbeats of every person in that room.

Then Joshua lifts his chin, all defiance and posturing, and hell breaks loose.

Andrew is halfway across the room in two seconds, so fast that Wymack couldn’t have stopped him even if he wanted to. He lifts Joshua’s front so he’s teetering on his tiptoes despite being a little less than a foot taller and slams him into a wall, all with the same politely disinterested expression on his face.

Dan hesitates for a second, like she’s actually thinking about letting Andrew kill their new teammate, before shouting,  _ “Andrew!”  _ and throwing herself on top of him, Matt a second behind. They’re having little success, though; Andrew has always been deceptively strong.

Kevin has taken a seat on the couch and is looking two seconds away from a mental breakdown. Aaron hasn’t twitched, is watching the whole spectacle like this is a movie in a theatre. The rest of the Foxes are in various states of shock.

Wymack curses under his breath. This _really_ wasn’t how he wanted this to go. He runs forward, dodging the couch and the still frozen Foxes, and gets just close enough to see the poorly disguised terror in Joshua’s eyes, to hear Andrew telling the Raven, “—not a part of this team, don’t think I don’t know that you’re reporting back to Riko—”

“That’s enough!” Wymack shouts, and shoves his way in between the Raven and Andrew. Joshua’s shirt rips audibly when Wymack tears Andrew’s fingers from his collar, and he winces. Small price to pay.

(Wymack knows that if Andrew had really wanted Joshua dead though, he’d be dead. He pretends not to notice the knives because Andrew is a damn good Exy player, and if he needs an extra feeling of security then so be it.)

Joshua’s shoulder is shaking beneath Wymacks’ hand, but he doesn’t think that Andrew’s heart rate has exceeded baseline once in this entire altercation.

“If you guys want to keep playing Exy,” he snarls at the room at large, “If you guys want  _ any  _ chance of seeing Neil Josten ever again, you are going to have to play with this guy. Do I make myself clear?”

The room is silent except for Kevin’s quick breathing.

“Good,” Wymack says, then leaves the room, pushing Joshua in front of him. “Let’s go to Abby’s.”

Well. That went about as well as he could’ve expected.

Joshua is quiet as Wymack stuffs him into the car and drives them away from the University. Wymack wishes he would say something, just to get a read on his mental state after being more or less attacked by Andrew.

Finally he can’t take it anymore. “How’re you holding up?”

Joshua looks at him, pale brown eyes sharp and considering. Then he sneers. “Let’s cut the crap. You don’t  _ really  _ care about how I’m ‘holding up’ or whatever.” And he actually uses  _ air quotations _ around that. Wymack has to stop himself from rolling his eyes. “You only care about whether or not I can play with Doe. And trust me, I’m a  _ professional.  _ I can play with anyone, even if they’re  _ violent psychopaths _ .”

From the way Joshua is looking at Wymack, it’s clear that he doesn’t think that Andrew is the only violent psychopath on the team.

_ Bastard,  _ Wymack thinks, and grinds his teeth to stop himself from punching Joshua in the face.

* * *

**Joshua**

Joshua sits on the bed, staring hard at his phone.

_ Josten’s bed _ , he thinks, feeling a sneer crease his lips. The room still smells very faintly like him, acrid cigarette smoke and soap. A smoker, and a cheap one at that. As if Josten couldn’t sink any lower.

“Hey.”

Joshua looks up and meets eyes with his roommate, the big backliner with the pathetically friendly smile. He’d been the only one who hadn’t been glaring at Joshua when he’d been introduced. Just his luck he supposes, that his roommate would be a pushover.

The backliner—Matt Boyd, he thinks—gives him an awkward smile and takes another step into the room.

“I never said you could come in,” Joshua snaps, hackles rising.

Matt pauses, the friendly smile faltering.

_ Yeah, that’s right, _ Joshua thinks.  _ Turn around and walk away. I’m not here to make friends, I’m here to make sure you can play until you lose. _

At least he knows that he’s going home soon. No way the Foxes are going to make it anywhere. Even if Palmetto state wasn’t the worst team in their region, Joshua would make sure of it.

_ Secondary objective,  _ Riko had said.  _ Make sure they lose. Bring Kevin home to us. _ He’d flushed at the time, honored at being granted so much trust by the best Exy player in the league. He wasn’t about to let Riko down, not when he’d been promised a position on the starting lineup as a reward.

He sneers as he remembers Kevin, the way the other man had looked at him, like Joshua was a harbinger of some ill omen. He’s pretty sure he hasn’t done anything to warrant that kind of trepidation.  _ Yet. _

To Joshua’s surprise, Matt doesn’t walk away. He hovers in the doorway, chewing on his chapped lower lip.

Then he says, “Can I come in, then?”

Joshua stares at him, stunned. Almost on autopilot, he says, “No.”

Matt shrugs. “Fine, then. We can talk from here.”

Joshua boggles at the dogged persistence. He’s literally being as rude as he can, and Matt just doesn’t seem to care.

“Listen, I know you don’t like me,” Matt begins, running a hand through his hair. Pauses, then adds. “Or any of us. But the point is, it’s going to be pretty awkward and weird if I can’t even get along with my own roommate. So,” he smiles again and extends a hand. “Truce? We don’t have to be friends, but I don’t want to be enemies either, you know?”

Joshua stares at the extended hand.

Then he rises to his feet, eyebrows creasing into a dark stormcloud of an expression, and gets right in Matt’s face. How dare this Fox try to make nice with him. He’s a Raven, he’s worth at least fifty of these Foxes. Does he think that acting all innocent and kind is going to make Joshua lose sight of the fact that he’s in enemy territory?

“You listen here, Fox,” Joshua hisses. “There is no truce between us. There’s never going to be a truce between us, or a friendship, or anything, so you can stop with that false fucking attitude. Just stay out of my way so I won’t have to hurt you.”

Matt recoils as though he’s been slapped. Joshua takes the opportunity to shove the other man away from the doorway and slam the door in his face.

_ Good riddance, _ Joshua thinks.

* * *

**Neil**

Neil quickly falls into the rhythm of the sixteen-hour days.

It’s not difficult; he had those two weeks (three weeks in Raven time) during Christmas break to get used to the strange hours. There’s three hours of practice in the morning, followed by four hours of practice in the afternoon. Luckily Neil doesn’t have to worry too much about his schoolwork, as the Ravens all take the same online classes.

_ The Nest is a machine,  _ Neil thinks one day, when his mind is too hazy to focus on practice,  _ that churns out obedient little Exy machines. _

Riko is thankfully a lot less keen on giving him a beating every day now that he thinks Neil has fallen in line. He still aims his racquet at Neil whenever he messes up during practice, but the post-practice cruelty only happens if Neil decides to get mouthy. Jean tolerates his lapses in good behavior with weary exasperation and threats of burning his binder and all of its contents. The other Ravens generally steer clear of him. He knows that some are jealous due to the number on his face, but he’s not sure about the others.

Some days he thinks about Kevin in the Nest, buried beneath the earth. He thinks that he’d apologize to Kevin if he could, for calling him a coward for not trying to leave the Nest on his own. The Nest digs its claws in deep, though, and Neil has the dawning realization that if he’d been raised as Kevin had, he probably would be no better.

He also thinks that he’d like to shake Kevin, and ask  _ why  _ he’s hiding the fact that he’s Wymack’s son. Kevin should know better than anyone what an opportunity escaping the Nest is. The fact that he’s wasting it is enough to drive Neil to madness.

But a week later, as Neil had expected, the itch beneath his skin grows to intolerable levels. Over the break he was too exhausted and in pain to even think about indulging his periodic desire to escape, but now that Riko has more or less backed off it’s come back full force.

The ceilings are too low, the windows too small. He wants the wind on his face again, wants the world at his back and an endless road under his feet. It’s a dangerous emotion, and if he had any good sense he’d stamp it down. Too bad he’s never had any good sense.

The thought reminds him of Andrew, and something in his stomach twists.

“Jean,” Neil says, hooking his elbow against the back of his chair so he can face his roommate.

Jean pauses the Exy videos he was watching and looks up expectantly, but with a touch of a scowl. He’d had to grab the skin of Neil’s arm and twist it to keep him from back-talking Riko today, and he’s been in a foul mood ever since. Neil’s arm still hurts though, so he thinks they’re even.

_ “Is there any way to get onto the court after hours?” _

Jean looks taken aback by that request.  _ “What? No. Why would you want to do that?”  _ Then, his voice rising in his incredulity,  _ “Do you want to practice  _ more?”

“No!” Neil is quick to deny. He loves Exy, but the seven hour practices and the constant threat of pain is enough to burn even him out.  _ “No, I just want to go on a run.” _

Jean stares at him for a second, then rolls his eyes and turns back to his laptop.  _ “I’ll go to the gym with you in twenty minutes if you want it that badly.” _

“No,” Neil repeats firmly. “No,  _ the treadmill isn’t the same. I want to go to the court.” _

To be honest, running around the court isn’t really the same either, but it’s better than running in place, or not running at all.

Jean turns back around, but he doesn’t look annoyed anymore. He looks vaguely worried, the same way he does when Neil’s said something particularly blasphemous about Riko and he’s worried that someone overheard.  _ “I’m...not sure that’s allowed. I’ve never asked.” _

Neil rolls his eyes.  _ “Riko’s not going to get mad at me for running around the court for a couple of hours.” _

_ “You don’t know Riko,”  _ Jean argues, wringing his hands. Neil’s words have only made him even more scared.  _ “Do you really need to do this?” _

Neil understands where Jean is coming from, he really does. The other man has lived alongside Riko for years, has survived the misplaced anger and the brutal practices and Kevin’s loss. Taking any sort of risk must be terrifying for him.

_ “You can...stop me after an hour, if it would make you feel better,”  _ Neil tells him.  _ “Just bring your homework and stop me after an hour.” _

Jean relaxes a little bit, that concession enough to assuage at least some of his concerns. He nods shortly and begins shoving his things into his bag, so Neil pulls his running shoes out from under his bed and shoves them onto his feet. They walk down to the court together, Jean looking less and less tense the longer they go without anyone coming to stop them.

Neil stretches as Jean clambers up into the bleachers. As soon as he’s ready he shouts, “Start my time now!” and takes off.

He’s vaguely aware of the first couple of laps going by, his sneakers eating up the synthetic material. He closes his eyes and runs blind, trying to imagine houses, cars streaking by. Palmetto State rises before him, and for just a second he thinks that he can see figures in front of a familiar apartment building. But then it’s gone, and he opens his eyes to the darkened running track in the belly of the Nest.

He continues running. Pours speed and energy he doesn’t have into his legs just to feel the heavy burn of them.

_ Has it been an hour yet? _

The thought occurs to Neil between one step and the next, and just like that he slams back into earth, back into reality. His frenetic pace slows, and he’s painfully aware of how tired he is.

He looks up toward where Jean had been sitting. Then he freezes.

Riko is sitting beside Jean. He’s not doing anything to him, just sitting, but from the way Jean is staring at his laptop it’s clear that he hasn’t moved in a long time. Neil wonders how many hours have passed since he started. Considering his stress levels and the way his whole body feels like it’s about to slough to the floor, probably well over an hour.

Neil walks a lap, more to avoid the pending confrontation than because he needs it. Then he takes a deep, fortifying breath, and walks up the metal steps toward the pair.

“Is watching me run laps that entertaining to you?” Neil asks, carefully neutral.

He only realizes how strange it is that he can’t see Riko’s other hand the same time he lifts it from between him and Jean. The knife he’s holding is clean of blood, but Jean still relaxes without a sound.

A chill goes up his spine.  _ How long has that knife been pressed against Jean’s side? _

Riko gets to his feet, the knife held loosely, casually. He closes the distance between them in a few short steps, Jean’s eyes carefully apathetic behind him. Neil forces himself to keep his head raised, to look back rather than cower. He won’t give Riko the satisfaction.

“See,” Riko says finally, his voice a dangerous rumble, “See, that didn’t look like running laps to me.”

Neil darts a look at Jean, but the other man doesn’t look like he’s breathing.

It happens so fast that Neil doesn’t have time to react. Riko slams his fist into Neil’s face, and he’s so tired and shaky that his knees buckle and he crashes onto the metal. He gasps a shocked, pained breath— _ stitches popped again, shit— _ but then Riko is straddling his waist, the knife pressed against his throat.

“That was stupid, Nathaniel,” Riko says, smiling sadistically. “Planning on running away? Very stupid. You’ve already shown your hand, though. You’re not getting away from us again.”

“I wasn’t,” Neil whispers. His throat bobs against the knife as he swallows, and a second later he can feel blood trickle down his neck. “I just—I just needed to run. I wasn’t planning on running away. I swear.”

Riko presses harder. “I don’t believe you.”

Neil looks up into Riko’s eyes, and suddenly, inexplicably, knows that there is nothing that he can say or do that will convince him otherwise. The silence all week, the space, it hasn’t been Riko backing off, it’s been a predator patiently waiting for its prey to make a misstep.

Riko is going to hurt him no matter what he says.

_ Fuck.  _ He should’ve listened to Jean.

That night, Riko cuffs his hands above his head, takes the knife to his body, and tears him apart. Jean is there, but Neil is only aware of him in snatches. The rest of him is consumed by fire and humiliation which burns through him, purging him from the inside out.

Neil Josten is nothing but pain, and then he is nothing at all.

And when Riko finally finishes, when the door slams shut and Jean can finally peel him from the bed and treat his wounds, he whispers, “I’m sorry.”

Jean doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to; the look on his face says it all. At least Riko didn’t leave a mark on him.

He takes a deep breath. His arms ache, so do his legs. He’s tired and exhausted, but the pain is less than the despair he’s feeling, because Jean was right. He misread Riko, allowed himself to become complacent. He thought that the raven had become docile, but he was just biding his time, sharpening his claws to make his strike deeper and more shocking than the last.

It worked. This time, the raven cut out his heart.

_ “I want to go back to the Foxes,”  _ he whispers, throwing his arm over his eyes to hide the tears.  _ “I want to be Neil again.” _

The rustling stops, Jean hesitating from where he’s bandaging one of the wounds on his leg. Then he starts moving again, but his touch is more gentle and understanding than it’s been since he arrived.  _ “You forfeited the right to be Neil Josten the second you stepped into the Nest.” _

He’s right. Of course he’s right.

Why’s he been holding on all this time? It’s no longer worth anything to him. He can’t run anymore; Neil Josten was a transaction whose only purpose was to add a couple extra months onto his life expectancy.

And—

He wants to leave Neil Josten with the Foxes. It’s a selfish, childish thought, but he wants to leave Neil Josten unsullied, a family beside him and freedom under his fingertips. Let the Ravens tear Nathaniel Wesninski to pieces, that’s nothing new. But Neil Josten was worth something to the Foxes, so there he will stay.

Neil Josten curls his hands together, capturing the thought in his shaking palms, and—

Lets go.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the last section has neil hurting and reacting to riko's torture from last chapter

**Joshua**

Joshua’s never moved to a new school in the middle of the year before. He moved once in the second grade, but he doesn’t really remember it.

He supposes that he’s just lucky that he’s transferring in the middle of the year during college, and not in high school. College students tend to keep to themselves; many only see each other once and then never again. It makes it easier for Joshua at least, who’s not planning on staying past the end of the semester.

It’s still weird, though. At Edgar Allan, the Ravens were given a wide, awed berth by the rest of the student population, and rarely interacted with anyone else. Here Joshua is just another nobody; the other kids students give him disinterested looks before shrugging and going back to their business.

He coasts through the first half of his Monday classes without having to interact with anyone else. He’s technically a sports science major, but he’s decided to take the semester easy academic-wise and is only taking generic common core classes.

He passes some of the other Foxes on his way to class, but at best they ignore him, at worst they give him a disgusted glare. He sneers right back, undaunted. He doesn’t want their approval.

Kevin, though. Kevin’s been alternating between staring at him in horror and glaring like he’s planning on attacking him. Joshua kind of wishes that Andrew wasn’t there, just so he could punch Kevin in the face for abandoning the Ravens.

The last class of the day finds him in the language building for third level Spanish. He gets lost on the way there, though, so by the time he finally arrives there’s only a couple of seats left. He deliberates for a second, before deciding that the short blonde girl in the Palmetto jacket seems like a safe choice.

To his surprise, the second he sits down the girl is turning to him, smiling with a row of slightly crooked white teeth. She extends her hand and says, “Hi, my name is Katelyn.”

Joshua stares at her hand for a second, wavering. He’s not terribly interested in making friends at Palmetto State, but it _would_ be nice to have an acquaintance in class he can get notes from if he needs to skip. So he forces a smile onto his face, shakes her hand, and says, “Joshua.”

Katelyn beams at him. Joshua wants to sneer at her overly cheerful attitude, but he curbs his disgust. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around campus before, Joshua. Are you new?”

“Transferred this year,” he says. “I’m only here for a semester.”

“Oh,” Katelyn says, tilting her head in confusion. “Okay. Well, nice to meet you.”

“Sure,” he responds, and then turns back to the front.

* * *

**Kevin**

Kevin turns his chair around and swings his legs around the back of it, his notebook in front of him. Andrew, who’s sitting at his desk doing nothing apparently, turns around and looks at him like he’s the dirt on the bottom of his shoe. Kevin barely notices, head full of his scheming.

“So,” Kevin begins. “I have a plan.”

“Go ask someone else to indulge your Exy obsession,” Andrew responds boredly, and then turns back to his desk.

Kevin bites down on a frustrated growl, takes a deep breath. Continues, “You asked me for help to get Neil out. I’m helping.”

Andrew pauses, then turns back around, very slowly. “You have thirty seconds.”

Kevin wants to roll his eyes, but he knows that Andrew’s serious about the time limit. Instead he turns his notebook around so Andrew can see and says, “To get Neil out of the Nest, we need to win against the Ravens in the finals.”

Andrew narrows his eyes. “That doesn’t sound like a plan.”

“No, listen,” Kevin insists, nervous and hopeful. “Neil’s at Edgar Allan, sure, but he’s Moriyama property, not Riko’s. We have to convince the Moriyamas that putting Neil at Edgar Allan won’t give them the highest return on their investment. _That’s_ when we negotiate for Neil to come back to Palmetto.”

Andrew stares hard at the notebook for a second, thinking about that. Then he says, “This isn’t just about Neil, is it?”

Kevin scowls at him, but he can’t deny it. “If the Ravens lose to the Foxes, it’ll prove that Tetsuji’s coaching methods are flawed. The main family doesn’t care about Riko or Tetsuji’s pride. If it can be proven that Neil and I will do better professionally if we go to Palmetto, Riko will lose the ability to force us back.”

Andrew’s right, this _isn’t_ just a way to get Neil out of the hands of the Ravens. If Kevin executes this plan perfectly, then it’s a way for _him_ to get away from Riko and Tetsuji as well. Maybe he can even do something for Jean, like he wasn’t able to do before.

“That’s _if_ we win,” Andrew says flatly. “When I told you to grow a spine, I didn’t mean you should be making dangerous gambles.”

“Do you have a better idea?” Kevin demands. “This is the only way I can see to dethrone Riko.”

Andrew rubs his forehead. “It would be easier to stab him.”

Kevin finally gives into the urge to roll his eyes. “And then you’ll go to jail. Are you going to help me or not?”

“I can make it look like an accident,” Andrew adds, almost petulantly. Then he shakes his head and breathes out a harsh breath through his nose. “Fine. Do whatever you want.”

And that’s as good as a green light as Kevin is ever going to get.

“You’re going to need to work harder to shut down the goal,” Kevin tells him, turning the notes back around so he can review them. “You should start practicing with me. The Raven is going to be a problem, but we can handle him. I should also invite the other Foxes—”

“No,” Andrew says.

“I—” Kevin pauses. Puts down his notebook. “What?”

“I’ll shut down the goal,” Andrew says, contemptuous, “But I don’t see the point of making nice.”

Kevin slams his notebook shut and resists the urge to throw it at Andrew. “I’m not asking you to _make nice,_ I’m asking you to work with your teammates. Did you or did you not ask me to help you get Neil out of the Nest?”

“Because you have such a good rapport with them,” Andrew shoots back coolly.

“I—” Kevin deflates, looks away. “I know I’m not always the most...pleasant. But if the others only applied themselves a little more, then we wouldn’t be a _lucky_ team. We’d be a _skilled_ team. I don’t want to win because of chance.” And then, after a second of consideration, he carefully adds, “And I doubt that’s satisfying for you, either.”

“Your delusions about how much I care about Exy aren’t as charming as you seem to think they are,” Andrew snaps, which means Kevin’s won.

“Great,” Kevin says, shoving away from the chair and taking a couple of safe, distancing steps back in case Andrew decides to change his mind. “See you tonight.”

* * *

**Andrew**

Joshua fumbles a pass to Kevin. It’s such a little thing, Neil used to do it all the time before he was snapped up by Edgar Allan. But for some reason, it sets Kevin off.

Andrew’s been expecting it for the last couple of days, honestly. Kevin’s been wound tight from a combination of both Joshua’s presence and quitting the alcohol cold-turkey. Andrew also knows that his own refusal to have anything to do with the rest of the team is infuriating.

He starts screaming at Joshua in Japanese, and though Andrew can’t understand a word he knows it has to be bad, considering the way the man is cowering. Andrew idly sets down his racquet and leans against it, enjoying the show. It’s like getting a window into the Raven’s world, where Kevin and Riko are the two best players on the court and therefore have the most power.

Joshua is pale and trembling, and he keeps nodding and uttering _‘hai, Kevin-sama’_ every couple of seconds like a broken record. Sweat drips down his nose and forehead in rivulets, tracing around his hollow, sleep-deprived eyes. Despite the fear on his face he doesn’t look very repentant about the eyes, just defiant and reckless.

“Hey, Kevin,” Dan says without looking up. She’s making a show of being a good captain, but her heart’s not into it. “Knock it off.”

Matt is the only one who seems genuinely unhappy about Kevin’s increasingly furious tirade. He rests his chin on his hands, folded over the top of his racquet, and eyes Kevin with a disapproving scowl. He doesn’t say anything, though. Andrew’s heard from Renee that Joshua has been rudely rebuffing every friendly overture Matt tries to make.

Kevin rounds on her, bristling like a hedgehog. “We need to win. He needs to stop deliberately fucking up and _help us win.”_

 _So he finally noticed_ , Andrew thinks.

“I don’t have to help you do anything!” Joshua suddenly pipes up. “This isn’t my team. R— Edgar Allan will beat you and then take me back at the end of the season.”

 _Oh-ho._ Brave _and_ stupid.

“Alright,” Wymack shouts across the court. “That’s enough!”

But Allison gets there first. There’s a sudden blur of bright gold hair, and then a resounding smack as her fist impacts Joshua’s cheek. He stumbles to the floor and stares up at her, eyes wide and betrayed, like he’d been counting on the _dumb blonde bitch_ not to lash out at him.

The court goes silent. Allison shakes her hair out of her eyes and glares down at Joshua, her reddening knuckles resting casually against her side.

“We’re going to win with or without you,” Allison tells him coolly. “And after that, we’ll take Neil back and you’ll run home to your precious Ravens. So even though we’d rather have him, you’re going to play like you fucking mean it because _you’re_ here and he’s _not_. Capisce?”

 _She’s gotten a lot more tolerable ever since Seth died,_ Andrew thinks.

Joshua stares up at her, jaw parted slightly, and he can’t tell from this distance if it’s shock or because it hurts. Then he says, perfect wonderment in his voice, “Why the hell do you care so much about him?”

“What?” Allison asks, frowning.

“He’s—awful,” Joshua really seems hung up on this point. “He’s a genuinely awful backliner. He’s willful and stupid and he gets in trouble with the Master far too often. Neil is a poor investment. So why do you care?”

Dan is the one who answers. “I don’t know how they do it around the Nest, but Neil is a Fox. He’s family. We look out for our own.”

Joshua looks like he was just smacked across the face again, like the idea of Neil being family is so foreign that he can’t come to grips with it.

Andrew snorts and looks away. He’s already got one broken Raven on his plate, and a Fox trapped amongst a bunch of carrion birds (whether he’s coming back on his own two feet or in a body bag, Andrew doesn’t know yet). He doesn’t care enough to try and fix anyone else.

* * *

**Wymack**

At the end of afternoon practice, almost a week and a half after the start of the semester, Wymack finally decides that he’s had enough.

“Dan!” he calls to the Foxes’ captain. She turns around, and he internally winces when her eyes are just as cool and unreceptive as they have been since Neil left. She’s a trustworthy captain and patient besides, but her grudges linger. “My office in five.”

Indignation flashes in her eyes, but she nods shortly and turns back to the conversation she was having with Allison, new tension in her shoulders. Wymack watches her, frowning, before shaking his head.

“She’ll come around,” a voice says softly.

Wymack looks up. Renee is standing beside him, her pale hair pulled into a short ponytail at the nape of her neck. She’s watching Dan too, and despite the smudge of dirt on her cheek and the sweaty gleam of her skin, she looks like some fae creature, not entirely there.

Wymack snorts. “We’ll see.”

“Deep down she knows it’s not your fault,” Renee insists gently, brushing her bangs from her eyes. “Especially after what happened with Seth. She’s hurt. This is the first time she’s been so invested in the team. Give it time.”

“We don’t have _time,”_ Wymack mutters. If they’re going to have any hope of making it to finals, they _need_ to be able to present a united front. Especially with the little viper in their midst, purposefully screwing up. _Edgar Allan will beat you and then take me back at the end of the season!_ Christ, and Wymack had been feeling a little bad for the kid, considering the poor reception from the rest of the team.

But Graham’s treachery is far less concerning than Dan stubbornly refusing to talk to him. As fractured as the team is, they tend to take their cues from her. It’s making them perform even worse than usual. Wymack cannot afford Dan being pissed at him for much longer; it could cost them the season.

Renee is quiet at that.

Dan takes fifteen minutes to finish up in the locker room, which Wymack knows is about five minutes longer than usual. The fact that she knows that he probably knows she’s keeping him waiting is enough to put him in an even more sour mood than he already was.

“Coach,” she says as she enters his office, her wet hair plastered back against her head.

“Sure took your time,” Wymack growls.

Dan fixes him with an unimpressed look. “I came as soon as I could.”

“Alright, enough,” Wymack snaps. “I know you’re pissed at me for letting Neil go, but I said it before: there was _nothing_ I could have done. They forced him to sign the contract.”

Dan drops her bag, her hands curling into fists. She looks like she’s about to start throwing punches. “That’s bullshit. You know that they forced him to sign! You could have taken it to court! ”

“With what resources?” Wymack rises to his feet, and if he had hair he’d be tearing at it. “With what money? Do you think I have what it takes to stand up to the _entire_ Moriyama family? Do you want to lose the whole team that badly?”

 _“No!”_ Dan shouts, then turns around quickly to try and hide the tears. She never wants anyone to see when she’s crying. She’s always been like that, ever since Wymack first met her, an awkward freshman with the hunger to prove herself simmering under her skin. Her voice doesn’t wobble when she repeats quietly, “No.”

They’re quiet for a second.

“I just…” Dan begins, then shakes her head. She’s pleading now, and the vulnerability of it makes Wymack want to pull her into a hug. She never wanted the burden of Kevin and his Ravens. “Coach, why do we have to keep losing them like this? Isn’t there something we can do?”

Wymack finally gives into the desire to step forward and lay a tentative hand on her shoulder. When she doesn’t shake him off, he says, “You know that if I thought there was anything I could have done, I would have done it.”

Dan shudders, and finally buries her hands into her hands and begins to weep. Wymack closes his eyes, lets her fall apart under his fingertips, and swallows down his own tears.

* * *

**Nathaniel**

“Hey, Josten!” someone calls to his back.

Nathaniel hunches his shoulders and bites down on his lip. Beside him, Jean tenses and shifts so subtly that it’s almost unnoticeable. He does notice it, though, simply because Jean has placed himself directly between Nathaniel and the direction of the voice.

“Come on now, don’t be like that,” the voice continues, and Nathaniel recognizes it now. The mocking tone, the open derision. _Jenkins._ There are footsteps approaching from behind, and he can feel the tension and frustration radiating from Jean in waves. “I just wanted to talk.”

“He doesn’t want to speak with you,” Jean snaps, his voice full of defiance and boredom that Nathaniel knows is pure bravado. “Take your filth somewhere else.”

Nathaniel shifts, and has to bite down on a pained groan. His injuries were bad enough at the start of practice today, and they’ve only gotten worse. The knife wounds that Riko left aren’t deep, but they _are_ numerous, and in places where sweat gathers and stings like a hundred tiny fire ants biting into his skin.

In short, he’s in no shape to fight back, and he knows it.

“Well, I want to talk to _him,”_ Jenkins sneers, and then Jean lets out a noise of indignant frustration.

Nathaniel has a moment’s warning before Jenkins throws his arm over his shoulders. It’s barely enough time for him to stifle the whine that wants to escape. The coarse fabric of his jersey is rubbing into the cuts, and it burns like _fire._

“Riko finally taught you your place, you little _shit.”_ Jenkins hisses, squeezing harder. Out of the corner of his eye, Nathaniel can see the pleased sneer that crosses his teammate’s face, the delighted sadism that sends his stomach plummeting to the floor. “How long is it before I get to cut that number off your face and give it to someone who deserves it?”

 _Don’t react,_ he tells himself, freezing himself solid. Neil Josten would have had some acerbic, stinging response, but Nathaniel Wesninski knows that’s the first way to bring himself more pain. _Don’t let them smell your fear._

“Get _off_ him!” Jean shouts from somewhere far away. It sounds like he’s struggling with someone. Jenkin’s friends?

Nathaniel keeps his head down, his vision coming in and out like waves crashing on the beach. He feels a million miles away from himself, like he’s having an out of body experience.

 _Survive,_ Nathaniel tells himself. _Bite your tongue. Survive._


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in nathaniel's section riko is being gross and manipulative

**Joshua**

Joshua storms into Spanish and throws his bag against the floor before dropping into his seat. He’s sweaty and gross because he didn’t take a shower after practice this morning, and he knows that his other classmates are giving him disgusted looks, but he doesn’t care.

He hadn’t been able to face the Foxes in the locker room. They’re treating Joshua like he’s replaceable, like they don’t give a shit that he plays better than Josten ever did, even when he’s holding back. They’re acting like Josten is  _ important to the team,  _ and how fucked up is that, that they don’t even realize that the mouthy brat is just dead weight?

And deep down, beneath his indignation and righteousness is niggling confusion. He doesn’t get it. What do they see in Josten? Why do they care?

At least Dan had finally stopped trying to shove him over at every opportunity. Whatever Wymack said to her must have banked the fires of her hatred.

No wonder they’re such a terrible team.

“Bad day?”

Joshua jumps and looks over before realizing that it’s just Katelyn, with her crooked smile of white teeth and her tasteful, muted makeup. He’s suddenly aware of how filthy he is, and he looks away, embarrassed. “Something like that.”

Katelyn’s smile turns sympathetic. “Want to talk about it? I’ve heard I’m a pretty good listener.”

“Not to  _ you,”  _ Joshua snarls. Katelyn blinks at that, shocked, and Joshua instantly feels like a massive dick. It’s not  _ her  _ fault he’s stuck with the worst, most annoying Exy team on the planet. He scrubs the back of his neck and takes a deep breath, wrinkling his nose when his hand comes away sticky. “I—”

“You don’t have to,” Katelyn says ruefully, but not unkindly. “I understand.”

Joshua pauses. Stares at her. “You...do?”

Katelyn gives him a wry grin. She hasn’t lost an ounce of her good humor over the course of the conversation, and it’s throwing Joshua a little. He’s gotten used to the Fox’s surly distrust “I’m close to some people who are allergic to talking about their emotions. Trust me, I get it.”

Joshua lets out a surprised snort, and then is taken aback at himself for it. Katelyn’s beam returns though, like that was her plan all along. And Joshua…

Despite himself, he’s a little taken in by her charm.

Slightly emboldened, Joshua says, “I suppose—I’m on a sports team. I’m just...it’s not going well.”

Katelyn rests her chin on her hand, swirling a lock of hair around her pencil.  _ “Athletes.  _ I hear you. It must be especially difficult, considering that you transferred in the middle of the year, right?”

Joshua nods and opens his mouth to continue, but that’s when the teacher walks in and tells them to be quiet. Joshua flicks a quick half-grin Katelyn’s way, a  _ thanks for listening _ , and she nods back.

* * *

**Andrew**

“Has Kevin talked to you yet?” Renee asks.

Andrew wipes a long line of sweat from his chin and frowns when his hand comes away with a streak of blood. He hadn’t even realized she’d gotten him there.

“Kevin talks a lot.” Mostly about Exy. Andrew learned the fine art of tuning him out ages ago.

“About bringing the upperclassmen to his nightly practices,” she clarifies.

Andrew huffs and rolls his eyes, unimpressed. “He mentioned it.”

Renee looks at him with her luminous, searching gaze. “He talked to me directly about it. He said you would be practicing with us.” She hesitates, then adds, “I haven’t asked them yet.”

Andrew tilts his head toward her consideringly. It’s unlike Renee to not follow through on a request from someone else, especially one that’s likely to indulge her desire to try and act like a functional team. “Why not?”

Renee shrugs one shoulder and leans forward, all sinuous muscles and lithe grace. It would make Andrew jealous if he could bring himself to care. “Is it alright with you? He said you said it was fine. That doesn’t sound like you.”

Hm.

Andrew stretches his legs out in front of him, breathes out a long, slow breath that burns at the end. It makes sense that she would be confused. Willingly interacting with the rest of the team, putting more effort into Exy than is strictly necessary…

“We made a deal,” he says finally.

“Is this about Neil?” Renee probes gently, because she’s always been more perceptive than is good for her.

He decides that she’s warranted a bit of honesty. There’s a patchwork of red marks on her legs that tells of dark, harsh bruises in her near future. “Yes. He’s more interesting to have here than at the Nest.”

_ Interesting,  _ Andrew says, like that’s a good enough explanation for why he’s going to these lengths to get the runner back. It would be less effort to just leave him to rot. It’s what he  _ wanted. _

Trouble is, he doesn’t have an alternative explanation that makes sense. There’s something about Neil Josten that he can’t forget, like an itch that’s just out of reach. Is it curiosity? Certainly. He’s obviously hiding more than he lets on. Is it attraction? It’s a possibility, especially now that the drugs aren’t clouding his judgement.

But there’s an emotion there that he can’t name, one that makes him ache to think about. Something deeper than attraction, more concrete than curiosity. His hand burns where it had rested over Neil’s scars, and sometimes the memory of dark hair and a quicksilver tongue brings him to a pause.

If Andrew was smart—and he is—he’d forget about the emotion, bury it deep where it can’t hurt him. And it  _ will _ hurt him. It always does.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Andrew snaps.

Renee hides her sly smile behind her hand and says, “So you want me to talk to them?”

“I don’t like answering questions twice,” he responds, turning away. “You and Kevin can do what you want.”

* * *

**Nathaniel**

Nathaniel is so tired. His vision comes in and out of focus as he stares at the sticky puddle of long-dried soda on the floor.

His wrists ache where the handcuffs bit into his skin (yesterday? Two days ago?), and the knife scars on his legs and arms are burning like someone’s poured acid over them. The air in the stadium is hot and the crowd too loud, too stifling, making him anxious and jumpy. Not to mention he and Jean had been woken up well before their usual time and bundled into a car headed for the airport, leaving them both sleepy and disoriented.

And Riko still hasn’t told them why they’re here. Well, maybe he told Jean, but thus far he hasn’t said anything to Nathaniel. He doesn’t even know where they are, not really. Texas, maybe? He hasn’t been paying attention.

A small, callused hand closes over the back of Nathaniel’s neck, and he jumps.

“Look up,” Riko orders, voice full of dark glee.

Nathaniel doesn’t want to look up. He wants to do anything other than that, knows that Riko has arranged something awful because that’s what he  _ does _ . But if he doesn’t look up now, then Riko will get mad and take it out on Jean and him later, and he’ll be forced to look up anyway.

He’s gotten good at this, picking and choosing his battles. Neil would never have been able to do it, but Nathaniel has just enough Mary in him that he’s stopped feeling the sour bite of shame.

So he sighs and takes a fortifying breath.

Looks up.

His breath catches in his throat and he half-rises to his feet, staring at the orange-clad team running around the outside of the court. They’re wearing their orange-on-white away jerseys, and they look lean and strong and determined as their footsteps eat up the pavement.  _ The Palmetto State University Foxes. _

There’s Dan at the front, setting the pace. Kevin is barely a step behind her as he always is, like he’s determined to outpace anyone who thinks they could catch up.

Matt is a few steps behind him, as tall and strong as ever, but there’s someone Nathaniel doesn’t recognize a couple of feet behind him, someone with a head of dark hair that has to be the Raven who took Neil’s place.

He watches the Raven run for a second, wrestling with the tangle of want and jealousy and pure frustration at the sight. It isn’t like this is new information; logically he’d known that there was someone else on the team, sliding into the empty space he’d left behind.

But  _ oh, _ it aches.

He forces his eyes away.

Aaron and Nicky are side-by-side, and the latter is laughing at something, probably his own joke, while the former just smiles faintly. Renee and Allison are next, their hair lit aflame by the lights overhead. And then there’s—

Andrew.

“Sit down,” Riko hisses, his words accompanied by a hard squeeze and a jerk downward from the hand on Nathaniel’s neck. “And close your mouth, you’re representing the Ravens.”

Nathaniel does as he’s ordered, but can’t take his eyes off his team. The Foxes. It feels like another life. Did Neil Josten really once run among them? Did he really exponentially hasten his death just for one last chance to play Exy?

Did he really think that he might, for once in his life, have a home there?

“We’re here to watch them lose,” Riko tells him, his voice low and hypnotic. “And to remind Kevin of his place.”

“Did you really need me here for that?” Nathaniel mutters petulantly, unable to tear his gaze from the runners, who’ve just finished their run and are now heading back to the locker room.

The fingers turn inward and Nathaniel has to stifle a sound when sharp, perfectly manicured nails dig in. It doesn’t hurt that much, not compared to literally everything else, but it _ is _ shocking. He shuts his eyes so he doesn’t have to see the Foxes. It’s childish, but his brain reasons that if he can’t see them, they can’t see him either. If they looked up and saw him right now...

“Mind your tone,” Riko hisses. “Kevin’s not the only one who needs to be reminded of his place. Yes?”

Nathaniel squeezes his eyes shut tighter, and tries to draw up the scent of cigarette smoke in his mind.

Riko shakes him. “Yes?”

Nathaniel nods. “Yes, king.”

The hand disappears, and Nathaniel feels something loosen inside his chest. He opens his eyes but doesn’t look up again, just finds the same faded-orange stain on the floor and lets his eyes soak in the details.

But he can’t help himself, of course. After an indeterminate amount of time, he lifts his eyes.

Kevin is staring back at him, jaw loose, eyes wide and surprised.

Nathaniel rears back in his seat, his legs itching to jump up, to start running as far away as he can. He doesn’t want the Foxes to see him like this, broken and defeated and  _ Nathaniel, _ not Neil. Not after calling Kevin a coward and spineless and...and everything else.

Riko deliberately closes a hand over his neck again, and the lines about Kevin’s face tighten as he watches the movement. His eyes go back to Nathaniel’s though, and he says something that looks like his name.

Wymack is the second one to notice; his eyes widen much the same as his son’s, and his mouth etches a curse word. The other Foxes look up, and their faces immediately drop with horror, or pain, or pity.

Except for Andrew, though. Andrew just stares up at him expressionlessly, his eyes unfathomable pits. Nathaniel feels a shock roll through him as he realizes that there’s no haze on his face, no caricature of a smile on his lips. This is the first time he’s seen Andrew when he’s not on his drugs, and he feels a moment of regret that he can’t be down on the court, experiencing it in person.

Nathaniel closes his eyes and looks away, punches down on the feeling of shame and despair welling up inside.

_ Point taken, Riko. _

* * *

**Kevin**

“Hey, knock it off.” Wymack snaps at them, tight and strained. “If you guys look up there one more time, I’ll have you running laps until you throw up.”

Kevin drags his eyes away from Neil, a tangle of emotions rising in his throat like bile. He hasn’t seen him since before Winter break, when he begged Neil not to go to Evermore. A small, vindictive part of him is going,  _ I told you so,  _ but the other part can only see the wide, frightened blue eyes and the way Riko’s hand clamped like a vice around Neil’s neck.

_ Fuck,  _ what have they done to him, to turn him from a proud, defiant fighter into this snarling, terrified creature? He knows what they used to do to Jean in those oppressive walls, the darkness consuming screams and mocking laughter alike—

Kevin starts when he feels someone flick his ear. He looks over and catches Andrew’s blank hazel eyes. He doesn’t say anything, but the steadiness of him, the unimpressed regard of both the Longhorns and Riko, is enough to draw Kevin away from the Nest. Just a bit.

“Remember the notes that Kevin gave us,” Wymack is saying. “These guys are quick and dangerous, but they’re not impenetrable. The trick is holding the court center. And for the love of all things holy, watch those dealers.” Then he rounds on Joshua, who jumps. He’s been staring at Riko too, and something hardens at the thought of him worshipping that bastard, thinking that Neil  _ deserves  _ whatever is being done to him. “And you. No funny business, you understand? If I think that you’re throwing the game, I’m benching you.”

Joshua looks outraged, which is ridiculous considering how apt the accusation is. “How  _ dare  _ you—”

Wymack ignores him and finishes the rest of his pep talk without incident.

Kevin grabs Andrew’s arm and pulls him aside before he can follow the rest of the team to do drills. Andrew’s persistent silence throughout the whole meeting has been making him nervous. “Are you going to take this seriously?”

Andrew stares very hard at the hand on his arm for a couple of seconds. Kevin finally takes the hint and lets go.

Then Andrew looks up and says boredly, “I said I would.”

For anyone else it wouldn’t be enough, but Kevin knows how seriously Andrew takes his word. That’s as good as a signed contract. Kevin relaxes and lets go, but not before taking one last look up at Neil.

He’s not looking down at the Foxes anymore. He’s staring at the ground, seemingly oblivious to Riko and Jean and the court in front of him. Kevin’s chest clenches, but he turns his back on Neil.

He has a game to win.

More importantly, though, he has a Raven to deal with. He doesn’t think for one second that Wymack’s warning did any good.

Kevin strides up to Joshua, who’s in the middle of doing a drill with Matt. Joshua looks bored and unimpressed with his roommate, and Matt’s expression is carefully controlled. Kevin’s known him long enough, though, to see the annoyance simmering just below the surface.

“Mind if I borrow your partner for a second?” Kevin asks Matt coolly.

“I have nothing—” Joshua begins, but Matt interrupts him before he can finish. “He’s all yours.”

Joshua stares at him, betrayed. “Hey!”

Matt shrugs. “How did you put it? I don’t owe you anything, so don’t try to make nice?”

Joshua gapes at Matt, his face turning bright red. He’s in good company. Kevin’s never heard Matt be so rude to someone’s face before. Joshua must be getting on his last nerve.

“I—” Joshua stutters, closes and opens his mouth like a beached fish. “That’s—”

“You heard him,” Kevin says, some smugness bleeding into his voice. Then he forces the satisfaction down and grabs Joshua’s arm, turning him away from the rest of the Foxes.

“Don’t touch me, traitor,” Joshua snaps, yanking his arm away.

Kevin can’t help but flinch at that word. He doesn’t regret leaving the Ravens, leaving Evermore—and his hand still  _ throbs  _ at the memory—but some part of him still aches for that unity, that superiority. Some part of him still longs for Riko’s attention, his validation, the simplicity of knowing his place was at his adopted brother’s side.

But he swallows down the ache and says, “Listen here. If we lose this game today, and if I think that it was your fault? I have ways of making your life miserable. Do you understand?”

Joshua sneers at him, but there’s something about his expression that gives Kevin pause. There’s a hesitance, or maybe—uncertainty? Either way, there’s some small crack in his normally unshakable, self-righteous facade. “You  _ Foxes  _ don’t need me to lose.”

Kevin stares hard at him, then at Matt, who doesn’t seem to be paying attention. He wonders if maybe Matt’s friendly overtures are working more than he realizes, or if something else is at work. After a second he says, with new, quiet deliberation, “I think you’re underestimating us more than you realize.”

Maybe—

From what Kevin remembers of the short time they’d known each other in the Nest, Joshua wasn’t too malicious, regarded the casual cruelty of the rest of the Ravens as beneath him. If they can convince Joshua to work  _ with  _ them rather than against them, make him see Riko and the Nest as they truly are—

But Joshua doesn’t hesitate. The corner of his mouth curls up into a snarl, and his pale eyes glitter like coals lit aflame. “I think I’m underestimating you  _ just  _ as much as you deserve.”

Kevin rolls his eyes, disgusted, and turns away. He doesn’t even know why he tried.

* * *

**Joshua**

Joshua watches Kevin go, pressing his lips into a hard, tight line.

He’s not sure why, but he feels...strange. Off-kilter. It’s…

It’s not Riko. He knows Riko, knows that the casual way he’d placed his hand over Nathaniel’s neck was a sign of ownership, the smugness in his eyes his due for finally taming that monster. There’s nothing shocking about that.

It’s—

The way Josten had looked at the Foxes. Joshua had barely caught it, probably wouldn’t have even noticed it if not for how hard he was staring at the duo. He’d been expecting defiance, petulance, anger at finally having been shown his place. He hadn’t been expecting the intensity of his emotions. The terror that lined his face like an artist’s brush stroke, the defeat that weighed like the world on Atlas’ shoulders.

The terrible longing in his eyes when he’d seen the rest of the Foxes, like they were air and he was starving for breath.

Joshua knew that he shouldn’t care, knew that Josten was Riko’s to do with as he liked. But there was something so different, so strange about seeing the deep bruises around Josten’s eyes under the lights of the stadium, seeing Josten how the Foxes must see him. So close yet just out of reach.

But it’s not just that, either.

It’s the way the Foxes have been looking at him, contempt and trepidation neatly tied off with a bow of resignation. The way Wymack and Kevin had singled him out as the unreliable one despite Aaron and Nicky being weaker players than him. The way Matt had shrugged Joshua off, like he didn’t care one way or another what happened to him.

And it shouldn’t ache like it does. It shouldn’t make him feel small and lonely, especially since he doesn’t care one way or another what this team thinks of him—

Riko’s promised him a spot on the starting lineup for his loyalty, his family is at  _ Evermore,  _ but—

Joshua looks up into the crowd again, and freezes when his eyes meet two dark, wild ones. There’s madness simmering just under the surface there, and expectation, and ambition.

_ Riko.  _ Who else could it be?

Joshua doesn’t know why, but his heart clenches with something that feels faintly like fear.

* * *

For a while, the game is at a standstill. The Foxes will score, then the Longhorns. Joshua watches from the bench, clenching his teeth at the injustice of not being on the starting lineup in a team such as this.

But as he watches, he realizes that even though they’re disorganized and at each other’s throats off the court, they actually have a strange, functional rapport when they’re playing. Kevin of course is a driving force, the brightest star on the team, but...he’s not carrying the team, he’s being supported by them.

Despite himself, Joshua finds himself rapt in their performance. He drinks in the way they shout encouragement to each other, the thuds of supportive hands on shoulders.

“Graham!” Wymack shouts, startling him. He straightens, embarrassed at having been caught staring so intently. “You’re up.”

Dan doesn’t say anything to him as he passes her to take his place on the court.

Joshua lifts his nose and stares down at her disdainfully. “See you on the other side, Hennessy.”

Fury flashes across her face, setting her already sweaty face aflame. She doesn’t react like he’d expected her to though, just slams her shoulder into his before disappearing into the box.

Joshua shakes his head and ignores the acidic looks the others are shooting him.

He’s barely on the court for two minutes. The other Foxes make it a point not to pass to him, not to look at him, like he’s invisible. When the Longhorns send him crashing to the ground, the referee is the only one who checks to make sure he doesn’t have a concussion. The only time he actually gets to touch the ball is when he steals it from one of the Longhorns, and he feels smug satisfaction when Allison looks genuinely shocked that he passes the ball to her.

_ If I sucked all the time it would look suspicious,  _ he wants to tell her.

At the end of his two minutes, Matt steps onto the court.

Joshua only plays once more, during the second half. It’s just as disappointing as the first two minutes he’d played, especially considering the Foxes win at the end.

The other Foxes look exhausted but pleased, clap each other on the shoulders and bare their teeth fiercely. In this moment, clad in their bright orange and triumphant from victory, he can’t tell them apart, including Kevin.

Joshua doesn’t dare look up into the stands.


	7. Chapter 7

From: ne.josten@eau.edu

Subject: none

To: an.minyard@psu.edu

Andrew,

Finally managed to get access to a library computer on campus. Just checking in. How's the team?

Neil

From: ne.josten@eau.edu

Subject: hi

To: an.minyard@psu.edu

Andrew,

Riko was especially insufferable today. Jean and I were making game plans in French and he started screaming at us. Like he’s not always talking to his uncle in Japanese.

You didn’t respond to the last email. Am I sending it to the right place? I hope things are going okay. Watch out for the Raven.

Neil

From: ne.josten@eau.edu

Subject: is this the right email

To: an.minyard@psu.edu

Andrew,

Sorry I couldn’t get to the computer in a while. One of the Ravens caught me sneaking out in the middle of the night and reported me to Tetsuji. Jean told me that I was an idiot. ~~Reminded me of you.~~

I miss the Foxes. Are you even getting these?

Neil

From: ne.josten@eau.edu

Subject: none

To: an.minyard@psu.edu

Andrew I can’t do this anymroe i can’t

Everything hurts and every time i close my eyes i can’t sleep

I’m sorry i shouldnt

I miss

From: ne.josten@eau.edu

Subject: subject

To: an.minyard@psu.edu

Andrew,

Sorry about that last email. I had a fever and was half delirious. Jean found me passed out in the hall.

Is Kevin just as annoying as usual? Do you guys still go to Columbia? Good luck at the Belmonte game.

Neil

From: an.minyard@psu.edu

Subject: shut the fuck up

To: ne.josten@eau.edu

I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but you’re not Neil. Stop sending me emails.

**Andrew**

Andrew is sitting in his dorm, going through his textbook, when his phone begins to ring. Kevin looks up at the unexpected sound, but when he sees that it’s only Andrew’s phone he lowers his head to his laptop again.

He checks the number and frowns. _Unknown caller._ Andrew puts the phone down and turns back to his homework.

The phone stops buzzing and doesn’t ring again, so Andrew shrugs it off. It isn’t until a few hours later that he realizes that the caller had left a voicemail.

He presses the voicemail button and puts the phone to his ear. He almost drops it when he hears the voice coming through the speaker.

_“Andrew, it’s me. I’ll try calling again later.”_

Andrew’s jaw works quietly for a second. He replays the message once, twice, trying to figure out if this is some kind of sick joke, but no. It’s only Neil Josten speaking in a harsh whisper, voice edged with fear and urgency.

He’d been _certain_ that those emails had been some Raven trying to play a prank on him. Now he wonders if they had been genuine.

A couple of hours later, the phone rings again. _Unknown caller._ This time, Andrew picks up on the first ring but doesn’t say anything, just lets the silence go.

After a couple of seconds, Neil Josten whispers, “Andrew?”

“Neil,” Andrew says. Kevin looks up sharply, his eyes wide. Nicky and Aaron don’t appear to have heard him at all.

“Andrew,” he breathes, sounding so relieved that Andrew’s chest aches despite himself. “Andrew, those emails were from me. Why didn’t you say something earlier?”

Andrew doesn’t say anything. He isn’t sure whether it’s because he doesn’t know what to say, or because he’s too pissed to speak. Kevin keeps watching him, looking as though he desperately wants to hear what’s being said.

 _Andrew. Please._ The words ring in his mind like a struck bell.

Neil’s voice takes on a note of begging, which only pisses him off even more. He swallows down the feeling before it can fully manifest. “Andrew, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

_Andrew I can’t do this anymore I can’t—_

Those words are burned into his mind. Even if Andrew hadn’t thought that they’d been real, he hadn’t been able to forget the desperation, the pain. Neil is trapped in the Nest with Riko and the other Ravens even though Andrew had promised to protect him.

He’d only been gone for five weeks. Couldn’t Neil have kept his martyr complex under control until then?

So after a moment of deliberation, Andrew settles on, “I’ll kill you.”

And then he hangs up.

* * *

Kevin hesitates at the door, his hand lingering over the doorknob. “Are you coming?”

Andrew stares at the ceiling in silence, just long enough to make Kevin shift uncomfortably. Then he lets out a low, resigned sigh, gets to his feet, and follows him out of the door. He ignores the look of profound relief that crosses Kevin’s face.

The drive over is quiet for the most part, and Andrew takes the time to reflect on what a terrible idea this is, how futile. Kevin is making a desperate gamble, a _dangerous_ gamble, and in Andrew’s experience one should never make risky bets on things that are this important.

And it’s going to be left up to _him_ to clean up the mess. Ugh.

“Let me do the talking,” Kevin tells him after almost five minutes of silence.

Andrew rolls his eyes. Kevin should know better than to think Andrew’s planning on getting anywhere near this clusterfuck.

They arrive at a somewhat popular, secluded cafe a couple of blocks from their dorm. Andrew locks the car behind him, and they head inside. Matt and Dan are already in a booth, steadily working their way through a basket of cheesy fries.

“You’re late,” Dan tells them as they slide into the opposite seat.

Kevin shrugs dismissively while Andrew reaches out and steals a fry. Dan ignores it, but Matt glowers. “Get your own.”

Andrew wordlessly stares him down, chewing as loudly as he possibly can. Matt’s hands tighten into fists, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Okay,” Kevin says, giving Andrew a warning look, which he pretends not to notice. “I think you know why we’re here. Renee talked to you, right?”

“She says that you might have a way to get Neil back,” Dan says, leaning over the table. Matt lunges forward and moves the basket of fries out of the way to prevent her from accidentally dipping the strings of her hoodie into the cheese.

Kevin shoots Andrew an alarmed look. “I never...expressly stated that.”

“Renee made some inferences,” Matt cut in, darting a confused look between Andrew and Kevin. He sees the fear in Kevin’s eyes, but he doesn’t know its source.

Andrew does, though; Kevin thinks that if any of this gets back to Riko, the psychopath could retaliate. Personally, Andrew thinks that it’s much more likely that Riko will have a good, mean laugh at their expense and go on with his life.

Unsettled, Kevin shifts from side to side, before he grudgingly allows, “I suppose that the end result would be the possibility of Neil being allowed to break his contract and come back to Palmetto State, yes.”

Dan leans back in her seat, a satisfied expression crossing her lips. Matt reaches over and threads their fingers together. She says, “Alright. Just tell us what we need to do.”

Kevin nods, the tension draining from his shoulders, just a little. “We need to win the championship game against the Ravens. As we are now, that’s impossible.”

Matt rolls his eyes. “You sure don’t pull your punches, do you?”

“This team is a mess,” Andrew finally says, cool and unforgiving, arms crossed in front of his chest. “You’re lying to yourself if you think otherwise.”

Dan frowns unhappily, but squeezes Matt’s hand to quiet him and nods at Kevin. “Go on.”

“I do extra practices at night.” Kevin nods toward Andrew. “He’s going to start joining me, and I suggest that the rest of the team does the same. If we’re going to win as a team, we’re going to need to start _acting_ as a team.”

Dan and Matt share another look, this one laden with gravitas. Andrew knows what they’re thinking. It’s the same reason he knows that this desperate plan of Kevin’s is bound to fail.

“I mean,” Dan begins delicately, frowning. “Like I said, we’re willing to do what it takes. I’m sure I can convince Allison to come around as well. But…” She glances at Andrew. “There are bigger obstacles to consider.”

“Like the Raven,” Matt adds absently, spinning his fry around to catch the cheese threatening to fall off.

Kevin frowns and drums his fingers against the table. Andrew uses the opportunity to flag down a waitress and order a milkshake, his craving for sweets poking at the back of his brain. Finally Kevin runs his hands through his hair, making it stick straight up, and says, “The Raven is going to be an issue regardless of our actions. I’ll bet that Riko’s offered him a spot on the starting lineup in return for sabotaging us, which means his loyalty is assured.”

“Seriously?” Matt asks, his eyebrows shooting up toward his forehead. “Tetsuji lets him get away with that?”

Kevin shifts uncomfortably, but has to lean back when the waitress hands Andrew his milkshake. “The mas—Tetsuji is...lenient with Riko. Under certain circumstances.”

“Hm,” Matt responds, thinking about that for a second. Then he shakes his head and says, “I’ve been trying to talk with Joshua a little, try to make him feel welcome a little. He threatened to feed me my racquet the last time I talked to him.”

Andrew can’t help but snort at that. Dan shoots him a poisonous look.

Then she says, with deliberate maliciousness, “What about Aaron?”

Andrew raises a warning eyebrow and says, before Kevin can do damage control, “What _about_ Aaron?”

She rolls her eyes. “You know what I mean.”

“Listen,” Andrew says, uncrossing his arms and gripping the edge of the table. Kevin whispers his name, a quiet plea to stop, but he ignores it. He doesn’t want these two to labor under a misconception any longer. “Whatever history Aaron and I have, that’s none of your concern. Worry about your own people, and I’ll worry about mine.”

“You can’t _seriously_ be happy the way things are now,” Matt says incredulously. “You guys have had years to figure your crap out, but it doesn’t seem as though you’re making any progress. If you would just—”

“You know, it’s cute that you think I care about your opinion,” Andrew says, low and vicious. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave it alone. Aaron and I are fine.”

“Just like Neil was fine?” Dan mutters under her breath.

And oh, that is _it._

“Let me out,” Andrew says quietly to Kevin.

“What?” Kevin asks, staring at him incredulously.

“Don’t think that I won’t stab you,” Andrew snaps at him, and shows him the handle of the knife stuck in his arm band. “Let me out before I bury this knife in your stomach.”

“Christ!” Matt yelps, rising as best as he can.

“Andrew,” Dan says, raises her hands placatingly, her eyes going wide with dismay. “Andrew, I’m sorry. We won’t talk to you about Aaron anymore. Happy?”

Andrew pauses, considering that. Kevin watches him with big, wary eyes, tensed to move the second Andrew makes up his mind that he wants to leave. And he could leave. It would be well within his right.

Where would that leave Neil, though, if the team splintered even more than they already had?

_Dammit._

Andrew slowly lowers back into his seat, biting down on his anger until it’s a tiny pinprick. He picks up his milkshake and shoves a bite of the melting ice cream into his mouth, letting the sweetness distract him. When he finishes, he wipes his mouth and says, “Fine.”

Kevin watches him for a second longer, searching for any sign that he’s about to change his mind. He obviously decides that he’s safe, because he turns back to Dan and Matt and says, “So we’re agreed, then? Will you guys be joining us at practice?”

Dan extends one clean, manicured hand across the table. Kevin stares blankly at it for a second, then hurries to shake when she raises a patient eyebrow at him.

“Sure,” she says, letting go. “I think you guys will have a harder time convincing the rest of the monsters to join you, though.”

Andrew folds his arms and stares at her. She didn’t _say_ that Aaron would be the issue, but the implication is there, and he doesn’t like it.

Then Matt unexpectedly says, a thoughtful note in his voice, “You really liked Neil, didn’t you?”

Andrew glances at Kevin to gauge his reaction—Kevin didn’t necessarily like Neil, they just shared a mutual obsession—but then he realizes that Kevin is looking at _him._ He looks at Matt, and that’s when he realizes that the upperclassman were talking to _him._ His mind goes blank for a second.

When he finally regains his voice he says, “No. I hate him.”

Matt hides a smile behind his hand, which deepens the dark streak of annoyance that’s boiling in his stomach. “Sure.”

Andrew pushes down on his anger (and the other emotions that had arisen at Matt’s stupid question) and shoves Kevin out of the booth. “We’re done here. Let’s go.”

* * *

**Nathaniel**

Nathaniel sits on the bed, staring down at the phone in his hands.

 _“Are you just going to stare at it forever, or are you going to call?”_ Jean asks boredly from his desk, not looking up from his homework. He squints at the notebook paper, sighs, and then scratches something out.

 _“Last time I called, Andrew said he would kill me,”_ he admits.

That merits an incredulous glance. _“And you still want to call him?”_

 _“Well, yeah,”_ Nathaniel says defensively, curling his knees to his chest and wrapping one arm around them. He wants to add, _it’s Andrew,_ but he knows that Jean won’t be impressed with that answer. _“I kind of deserved it.”_

Jean falls silent and looks back down, his lips pressed into a tight white line, like he’s biting down on his opinion of that. Nathaniel appreciates the consideration. Jean’s usually not the type to keep his thoughts to himself, especially about Andrew’s convoluted logic.

He says, _“Then give the phone back before someone sees.”_

 _“No, no, I’ll call,”_ Nathaniel placates quickly. It’s been a few days since he last called Andrew, and even though he had a bad reaction last time, he still wants to try and make things right. Andrew deserves that.

So he takes a deep breath and opens the phone, then frowns uncomprehendingly when a text box pops up on the screen.

When he finally makes the connection, he shoots a startled look toward Jean. _He’s talking to Renee?_

But it’s...not really his business what Jean does, and he doesn’t have the time or energy to confront him about it. Besides, there’s something comforting about the fact that Jean is in contact with one of his old teammates. So he just shakes his head, scrolls down in the contacts until he finds, _‘N’s psychopath’._

He glances over at Jean, who is now studiously ignoring him, before changing it to _‘Andrew’._ Then he hits call.

Andrew picks up on the second ring this time. Just like last time he doesn’t say a word, preferring to let Nathaniel make the first move.

“Andrew,” Nathaniel says, leaning back against the bedpost.

“Last time you called, I said I’d kill you. Do you think I’m the type to make baseless threats?” Andrew’s voice is flat and emotionless, and Nathaniel aches to hear it. His time at Easthaven may have helped him get off the drugs, but it also gave him incentive to clamp down on his emotions, and it shows.

Nathaniel swallows and says, “No, but you said it yourself. I’m stupid. Threats have never worked on me.”

“Oh, right,” Andrew says, aiming for where it hurts with unerring precision. “Riko only had to threaten you a couple of times before your spine gave out. For a runner, you’re pretty bad at running away.”

“No,” Nathaniel corrects before he can help himself, because he’s always been as stupid as Andrew says he is. “It was _you_ who he threatened.”

The silence that follows is heavy in a way that makes Nathaniel nervous and breathless for reasons he can’t describe.

“Ninety percent,” Andrew snarls, and then hangs up.

Nathaniel lowers the phone from his ear and stares at it thoughtfully. He has no idea what ‘ninety percent’ is supposed to mean, but he feels like he just won the upper hand.


	8. Chapter 8

**Joshua**

Practice goes as well as it ever does. The Foxes oscillate between ignoring Joshua’s existence and snapping insults at him, which he summarily returns, except for Kevin, who he tries to ignore. At least he can use the showers this morning, even if it’s horrendously awkward. So Joshua is in a pretty good mood by the time he gets to Spanish.

Joshua drops into the chair next to Katelyn, but his greeting dies on his tongue at the look on her face.

She’s always been a cheerful person, not prone to complaining or letting things get to her. He knows that she sometimes struggles with the harder grammar forms in the readings, but the challenge is always met with a self-deprecating laugh and a shrug.

Right now she just looks...sad. Tired, even under the makeup.

It’s really none of his business. She’s just one of his classmates, and he’s never going to see her again after this semester.

But he still remembers the kind way she’d smiled at him when he stalked in, sweaty and disgusting and looking for a fight. The way she’d showed him a moment of consideration, concern, the kind he’s been missing since he left...well, high school, actually. The Ravens didn’t much care about his mental state, as long as he could play.

She’s been kind to him since the second he walked into the classroom, even when he wasn’t very kind to her. That’s more than can be said for the Ravens _or_ the Foxes.

So he finds himself saying, “Are you okay?”

Katelyn looks at him, appearing as surprised by his concern as he is. “Oh. Uh, kind of. Not really.” Then she shrugs one shoulder and turns to look at her notebook, a kind of _you know how it is_ expression on her face. “Boy troubles.”

The thought that she thinks he wouldn’t be as courteous to her as she is to him somehow makes him feel...weird. It’s not a very nice feeling. “Oh,” he says, and turns to his own notebook and stares down at the blank page, thinking about that for a second. _It’s really none of your business._

But she just looks so...sad. Desolate.

He takes a deep breath and tentatively offers, “Do you want to...talk about it? It might help to talk to—” He wrinkles his nose, changes tracks. “To...get an outside opinion. And I’m pretty good about giving advice.”

Katelyn gives him a slow, incredulous smile. “No offense, but really?”

Joshua carefully does not think about the paperback Harlequin novels he’s been coming up with increasingly creative ways to hide from his classmates since sophomore year of high school. Instead he says, deadpan, “Really.”

Katelyn considers this for a second, rubbing the corner of her notebook page between her fingertips. The deliberation of her expression twists into a pained moue, and then smooths over into determination. “You know what? Sure, why not. We could study for the test in two days while we’re at it. Do you have class after this?”

Joshua shakes his head. “No.”

“Do you want to come to the library with me?”

Joshua only has time for a quick nod before the teacher walks into the room.

Class flies by, but Joshua barely hears anything that the teacher says. There’s a weird tightness and thrumming, giddy anticipation in his chest, because despite himself, he’s _excited._ Ravens didn’t have time for casual meetups in the library, didn’t _do_ relationships outside of the Nest. This is going to be the first time Joshua’s met up with someone outside of practice in almost three years.

Katelyn patiently waits for him to finish packing up all his stuff, and then they’re out the door. The walk to the library is quiet; Joshua is too nervous to even try to say anything, but Katelyn doesn’t seem to mind. She’s deep in thought, eyes distant, her breath steaming in the cool air.

They get inside, and Joshua almost leaps out of his skin when he feels a gentle touch on his elbow. Katelyn smiles at him apologetically, and says, “Mind if I get a coffee? I could really use it.”

Joshua nods, and stands off to the side to wait. She returns after a couple of minutes, and then they head toward the tables. It takes a bit of wandering before they find a spot empty of sleep-deprived students, but when they do Katelyn sits and takes out their Spanish homework.

_Guess she wants to wait a little bit before talking,_ Joshua thinks, and takes out his own.

They’re halfway through the problem set when Katelyn finally sighs, puts down her pencil, and says, “Okay, question.”

Joshua puts down his own pencil and leans back in his chair, folding his arms. He nods expectantly.

“What would you do,” Katelyn begins slowly, “If your boyfriend had this brother who was...a little unstable. They hate each other. But...it’s super complicated, too, there’s a lot of history. The bottom line is the brother disapproves of basically _every_ girl he’s ever tried to go out with, and your boyfriend is treating you like...like you’re some dirty secret.”

Joshua digests that for a second.

Then he says, because he knows himself well enough to realize that he can come across as insensitive, “This is going to sound mean.”

Katelyn wrinkles her nose and admits, “You don’t seem like the type of person to pull your punches.”

“Great,” Joshua says, and goes all in. “You let him treat you like that?”

Katelyn looks away and shrugs listlessly at that, like it’s something she’s heard before. “Like I said, it’s complicated. There’s a lot of stuff I can’t talk about.”

Joshua sneers derisively at that. “So? All the complicated stuff doesn’t matter. Does he say that he loves you?”

Katelyn lifts her chin and says, with perfect, absolute certainty, “Yes.”

Joshua sniffs. He has some doubts about that, considering what he’s hearing. “If that’s true, then he should fight for you. No matter how unstable his brother is, or their shared history.”

Katelyn looks gobsmacked, like the idea of her boyfriend actually fighting his brother for her has never occurred to her. And that right there makes Joshua want to find this so-called boyfriend and punch him in the face. Men who feel entitled to a woman’s love but won’t rise to the challenge of keeping her are worse than scum. He’d read that in the first paperback romance novel he’d ever read. It’s what got him hooked.

“Obviously it’s not my relationship,” he finishes self-consciously, with a touch more diplomacy than he’s displayed in the past few minutes. “But that’s my opinion.”

But Katelyn’s not looking at him anymore. Her voice is distant and deliberate as she says, “No, thank you, Joshua. You’ve given me something to think about.”

Joshua hides a smirk behind his hand. He hopes that this boyfriend of hers gets what’s coming for him.

Then Katelyn shakes her head and leans forward, the determination clearing from her face like clouds pulling back from the sun. “You’re right, Joshua. You’re pretty good at this.”

Joshua shrugs, mischievously affecting modesty. “It’s a talent.”

She lets out a bright, surprised laugh, then pulls her phone from her pocket. “Thanks for listening. Here, want to exchange numbers? It’ll be nice to have someone to study Spanish with.”

His heart pulses in his chest. He doesn’t smile, but he does shrug again with false casualness and replies, “Sure.”

* * *

**Andrew**

The upperclassmen agree to come to practice. Unfortunately, getting them to cooperate is another story. Andrew has been watching the clusterfuck with unashamed amusement.

Dan shoots a ball at a cone and misses, and Kevin tells her what a failure she is. Matt immediately comes to her defense, and Renee tries to cool their tempers, though anyone who knows her can see the pained, tense set to her face. It’s been like this all night.

It’s just as well that Kevin hadn’t been able to convince Aaron and Nicky to come. Andrew is pretty sure that things would have already descended into a fist fight if that had happened. Nicky is unable to control his obnoxious mouth, and Aaron would tolerate Kevin’s abrasive personality for about two seconds before losing his temper.

Yet Kevin’s such a shortsighted asshole that he doesn’t even realize that he’s sabotaging his own practice. The upperclassmen had come to with determined looks on their faces, but that motivation had quickly fizzled in the face of Kevin’s abrasive attitude. If Andrew were still on his drugs, he’d have found it hysterical, in a pathetic sort of way.

“Stop it,” Kevin snaps at Andrew, “Do you think this is funny?”

Kevin must be getting better at reading him than he’d realized; Andrew’s facial expression hasn’t twitched. “I think you’re pathetic,” he says simply.

Kevin’s face twists up like he’s just tasted something sour. “That’s it,” he growls. “We’re done! Everyone go home!”

Dan looks up incredulously. “We’ve only been here for thirty minutes!”

“You’ve wasted my time for thirty minutes,” Kevin snaps back. “Come back when you feel like putting in the effort.”

“Hey,” Matt’s voice is low, dark, and warning. _“You_ were the one who asked us to be here, so sorry if we don’t live up to your expectations literally on the first practice.”

Kevin starts expanding like an angry red balloon. Andrew decides that he’s bored of watching them argue like children, and if they’re done with practice _anyway_ then he wants to go home.

“Now, now, children,” he says. “Let’s not fight.”

Matt’s face twists into a dark, annoyed expression, and Kevin turns his angry red balloon face in Andrew’s direction. It has the intended effect of redirecting Kevin’s ire, however, which Andrew considers to be a win.

“I’d think carefully about what you’re about to say,” Andrew tells Kevin.

Kevin does not think carefully about what he’s about to say. In fact, he decides to throw all self preservation to the wind. _“You’re_ the worst of all of them! If you’d just—”

“Kevin,” Dan interrupts, clapping a hand on Kevin’s shoulder.

Kevin almost jumps out of his skin, obviously not having realized that their captain was approaching from behind like a stealthy lioness. After the shock passes however, he puffs up with dark indignance, and growls, “Get your hand off of me.”

Dan releases his shoulder, but her presence is no less intimidating. “Kevin,” she says quietly, almost too quiet for Andrew to hear. “We came here willing to work with you. We are _not_ the Ravens, but we aren’t your enemies, either. I want you to think carefully about that before you treat us like shit.”

Kevin favors her with an angry glare. “Oh, yes. It’s very, _very_ clear to me that you aren’t Ravens.”

Dan doesn’t seem offended by that; in fact, she smiles politely and pats his shoulder, like an adult placating a child throwing a tantrum. It was almost as though she anticipated that response. Either way, Andrew is almost impressed by her composure.

Kevin is frozen as Dan turns and walks away, Matt and Allison at her heels, his expression a volatile mix of outrage and shock.

Renee comes up to Andrew’s shoulder and says, “You should really talk to him. I’m not sure how often I can smooth things over before they get fed up and quit.”

“It’s not my responsibility to fix Kevin’s damage,” Andrew says mulishly in response.

Renee raises an eyebrow. “I thought you were more invested in Neil than that.”

Andrew bristles. “I’m not invested.”

He hopes that’ll get a rise out of her, but she only hums, smiles knowingly, and follows the upperclassmen out the door. Andrew watches her go, scowling, before shaking his head and turning to collect Kevin.

“Well?” he says. “Practice is cancelled. Let’s go.”

Kevin jerks out of wherever he was in his thoughts, then turns his frown on Andrew. “I said _they_ were done. I’m not.”

“Too bad,” Andrew shrugs. Then he mentally sighs, because Renee is right, no matter how much he hates to admit it. “What’s practicing going to do, anyway? It’s useless if the rest of the team can’t play.”

Kevin shoots him a look that’s so full of poison, Andrew half-expects his skin to start bubbling away from the bone. He _would_ be impressed, except he knows Kevin. The man is all bark and half-hearted bite. Case in point, he doesn’t respond, just throws the car door open and slides into the passenger seat with all the flair of a slighted theatre major.

Andrew rolls his eyes before getting into the driver’s seat. _Drama queen._ “If you slam the door one more time, I’m going for your kneecaps.”

“You _wouldn’t,”_ Kevin snaps, but Andrew can’t help but note the way his hands fly protectively to his knees.

* * *

**Kevin**

Kevin gets it.

He gets it, okay? He understands that he’s abrasive and rude and demanding to his teammates, and that these personality traits do not make him _likeable._ It was treated as his right when he was a Raven because he was second only to Riko.

Now that he’s at PSU, though, it means that his teammates give him dirty looks and mutter angrily under their breaths about what a dick he is. It means that they’d rather pass to someone, _anyone_ other than him during practice. It means that they’re less likely to listen to him when he’s trying to teach them.

It means that if he doesn’t get his act together, he could indirectly sabotage the team.

So yeah, he gets it.

But the problem is that his plan—a plan which Dan and the other upperclassmen _whole-heartedly agreed to—_ hinges on his team’s ability to perform. If they don’t get exponentially better in a very short amount of time, then there’s no possible way they can win against the Ravens. If they can’t win against the Ravens, the Moriyama family will see no reason to give Neil back to PSU. It’s simple causation. _A + B = C._

They have to take this seriously. And over the past couple weeks of extra practices, it’s become very clear to Kevin that _no one_ is taking this seriously. At least, not seriously enough. It’s driving him absolutely insane.

_Dan knows how to motivate the team,_ he thinks, staring at her as she directs the team through warmups. She almost looks like she’s glowing under the lights, her voice confident, her expression calm, still like the surface of a pond. She looks like the kind of person that people want and do listen to.

Kevin shoots a look across the court, toward the Terrapin’s side. It was barely enough to beat the Longhorns almost a week ago, but they were lucky and he knows it.

He meant what he said to Andrew all those weeks ago, that he doesn’t want to be a lucky team anymore. He wants the Foxes to be _good._

At the very least, he knows that Andrew is going to take this game seriously. Kevin’s known this for a while, but when the man makes a promise he _delivers._ He’s been coming to every extra practice Kevin had scheduled, throwing himself into his workouts with an intensity that is—quite frankly—terrifying.

It’s not just that, either. Kevin has been getting on Andrew about eating less sugar for a long time now, but his advice has always been received with derision. He hasn’t touched sugar in several weeks now, though. And whenever he’s in the gym, sometimes he’ll pause and look out over the track, like he’s seeing something, or someone, that’s not actually there.

But the rest of the Foxes _have_ been picking up some of the stuff he’s been trying to teach them, albeit more slowly than he would have liked. There’s something extremely satisfying about seeing Allison using some footwork he taught her, or Dan shooting a goal with unerring, Raven accuracy in practice.

It’s still not enough, though, especially considering the dead weight they’re carrying.

Aaron and Andrew aren’t technically fighting, but the former still avoids the latter like he’s carrying some sort of plague. Not to mention that Aaron and Neil didn’t get along at all, which means that Aaron doesn’t really feel the same urgency that the rest of the team feels, meaning that Aaron doesn’t see the need to go to the night practices. And Aaron refusing to go means that Nicky has an excuse to be lazy, so _he’s_ not going either.

And then there’s Joshua.

The Raven hasn’t been as irritating as Kevin had thought he would be. He comes to practices, keeps his head down, and, for the most part, keeps his prejudices to himself.

The fact that he’s not always terrible is what makes him so frustrating, though. Because one second Joshua will be participating in the practice, doing as well as he would be during a Raven practice, and the next he just so _happens_ to make a tiny little error that messes up the flow of the entire team. It’s unpredictable, which makes it harder for them to justify sitting him out of practice completely. He’s surprisingly useful when he’s not being Riko’s brainwashed minion.

His point is, something needs to change.

“Kevin,” Dan says.

Kevin looks up, scowling at being broken out of his musings. “What?”

Dan rolls her eyes at him. “Don’t look at me like that. It’s time to huddle up, come on.”

Kevin stares at her for a second, then looks around and realizes that he’s been standing alone on the court, absentmindedly shooting a ball against the plexiglass wall for the past thirty seconds.

“Oh,” Kevin says, vaguely embarrassed at having been caught lost in thought.

Dan watches him out of the corner of her eye for a second, before asking, almost tentatively, “Worried about the game?"

“Worried?” Kevin scoffs. “Playing with a team like this? I’d have to be stupid _not_ to be.”

Dan’s expression twitches a little, but she’s a captain through and through. The irritation she surely must be feeling doesn’t show on her face at all as she digs her fingers into his shoulder, leans in, and says, “Make sure the rest of the team doesn’t catch you with that attitude. It’s hard enough to keep them coming to the extra practices when they’re not reminded at every opportunity how much of an ass you are.”

Kevin feels himself flush red, and the first words on his tongue are instinctively insulting.

But then he thinks about how little progress he’s made over the past couple of weeks with the team, how Dan has the uncanny ability to motivate them to do what she wants. As much as it pains him to admit, the only way he can think of to get what he wants is to, well:

Be nicer.

So he bites his tongue and says, low and strained, “Fine.”

Dan actually jerks back a little, her eyes going wide and confused. She stares at him as though he’s grown a second head. Then she says, a slow smile growing across her face, “Kevin are you...feeling okay?”

Despite the fact that Kevin understands that he’s never been particularly polite to the Foxes before, he feels kind of offended. He bristles and says, “Yes.”

“Are you sure?” Dan insists, and then to his surprise the back of her dry, warm hand is pressed against the skin of his forehead.

Kevin jerks backward and shoves her hand away. “I’m _fine!_ I don’t have a fever.”

Dan retracts her hand, still staring at him with that half-incredulous, half amused look on her face, like the fact that he would actually keep his opinions to himself is so farfetched she’s having trouble comprehending it. Then she shakes herself out and focuses on the task at hand. “Well, good. Come on, let’s go back.”

Kevin nods shortly and walks ahead of her to their side of the stadium. He can feel her eyes boring into him the entire way back, and it takes everything he has not to raise his hackles and snap at her for it.

The feeling of being stared at intensifies throughout the Belmonte game as he continues to keep his mouth shut. Andrew is the only one who seems unsurprised by his sudden silence, but Kevin’s not sure if that’s because he understands what Kevin is doing, or if it’s because he just doesn’t care.

Fine. He’ll play the game, he’ll keep his silence.

Whatever it takes.


	9. Chapter 9

**Andrew**

Andrew sits at his computer, his pointer fingers resting on the tiny bumps of the _F_ and _J_ keys as he reads Neil’s latest email.

From: ne.josten@eau.edu

Subject: Re: i dont see the point of a subject

To: an.minyard@psu.edu

Andrew,

Congratulations on the game against the Terrapins. Nice to see that you only started trying _after_ I left.

It’s smart that Joshua is only being put in for a couple of seconds at a time. Be careful, though: there could be trouble if someone notices and starts asking questions.

I’m fine. Jean and I have been working a lot better together. I wish we could actually play against Riko, but he throws a fit if he doesn’t win.

Neil

Andrew pushes his hair away from his face, frowning.

_I’m fine,_ Neil had said.

He grits his teeth, because that is the most blatant lie that Neil has ever told him. Riko has been posting pictures on the Raven’s social media account, probably to taunt Andrew and Kevin, and Neil looks...miserable. He looks haunted and hunted, and he probably doesn’t even notice how close he gravitates to Moreau, like the other man can protect him by sheer presence alone.

The fact that Andrew has no idea what’s actually going on in the Nest is slowly but surely driving him mad. Every little tidbit he gets is a tiny piece of a larger, more telling picture. _He throws a fit if he doesn’t win. Riko was especially insufferable today. I had a fever and was half delirious._

If Andrew didn’t know where Neil was, if he didn’t have an inkling of how fucked up the Nest was, they wouldn’t be alarming. But he _does_ know.

And aggravatingly, it... unsettles him.

Irritated at the reminder that Neil Josten has somehow crept under his skin and causes him to _feel things,_ Andrew types out a quick response. 

From: an.minyard@psu.edu

Subject: Re: i dont see the point of a subject

To: ne.josten@eau.edu

We can handle the Raven.

Have you tried worrying about yourself? Maybe Riko would be more amenable to losing if you weren’t so irritating.

He hits send and closes the browser with more force than the action strictly deserves. Then he goes back to doing his homework, pretending that he’s not waiting for the phone to ring or his computer to notify him that he has just received an email, even though he knows it’s not going to happen: Neil usually can’t access a computer more than once a week; it’s too risky.

Several hours later, Andrew is surprised to hear a chime from his computer. He glances over at Nicky and Aaron to make sure that they’re not paying attention, before checking his inbox.

From: ne.josten@eau.edu

Subject: Re: i dont see the point of a subject

To: an.minyard@psu.edu

Can we call? Jean says that I can borrow his phone.

Andrew stares at that single line for a second, trying to tell himself that the feeling in his stomach is derision rather than anticipation. He glances over at the others again, then shakes his head and gets to his feet, pocketing his phone. The others don’t even glance at him as he walks out the door, used to him coming and going for a smoke.

He climbs up to the roof, shakes a cigarette from the pack, and shelters the tip from the wind as he lights it. The smoke sits heavy and heady in his lungs, and he holds his breath for as long as he can before breathing out.

_Can we call?_

Andrew pulls his phone from his pocket and scrolls to the number he got from Renee. 

**Andrew:** Ready  
  


The phone rings a couple of seconds later, as though Neil had been sitting there, waiting for him to respond. Andrew lets it ring a couple of times, staring at it, disgusted with himself, before flipping it open and pressing it to his ear.

_“Andrew,”_ Neil breathes in an undertone, as though he’s trying not to be heard.

“Are you taking unnecessary risks again?” he asks, raising an eyebrow even though Neil can’t see it.

“What?”

Andrew almost rolls his eyes at the complete lack of self-awareness. “You’re whispering.”

“Oh!” There’s a pause, and then the sound of rustling in the background. Andrew patiently waits for Neil to figure out what he wants to say. “No, Jean—Jean’s taking a nap. Though I suppose I’ll be in danger if I wake him up. He’ll be insufferable all day.” Neil’s voice dips with irritation. “Maybe I _should_ wake him up. He keeps changing your contact name in his phone. Right now it's 'Blond Midget'.”

“Right,” Andrew says slowly, taking note of the affectionate way Neil refers to the Raven. He was right about Moreau sticking his neck out to keep the idiot from getting himself killed. Then he falls silent, patiently waiting for Neil to get on with whatever he wants to say.

Neil lets the quiet linger for almost thirty seconds before letting out a quiet noise of understanding. There’s a low sigh before he speaks, his voice touched with hesitancy, “I just thought—I wanted...to talk to you.”

“I’m not sure what you’re expecting from me,” Andrew responds flatly. He sucks in a deep breath of smoke and breathes out before continuing, letting the subtle heat relax his shoulders. “I have nothing to say to you.”

“But I have a lot to say to you,” Neil responds immediately, like he somehow anticipated what Andrew was going to say. “It was—it was my birthday. The day of the Belmonte game.”

“You told Nicky your birthday was in March.”

“Yeah,” Neil agrees. “Yeah. I was—I want to clarify some things I told you before the...before.”

“You mean you want to finally tell the truth?” Andrew raises his eyebrows. He can’t reveal how much his interest is piqued by Neil’s history. “What do you want in return?”

“Nothing.”

Andrew waits for the punchline, because that has to be a joke. When none is forthcoming, Andrew prompts, “Nothing?”

“Nothing,” Neil confirms. “I lied to you, Andrew. You deserve the truth. It doesn’t matter who I tell it to anymore, anyway. I’m dead at the end of the year.”

Andrew takes another drag on the cigarette, staring up into the steadily darkening sky, considering that. Considers finally getting to the bottom of Neil Josten, finally figuring out what makes him tick. If he were a better person, he would tell Neil that it doesn’t matter, that what’s important is the time they had together before he left them.

Andrew is not that altruistic.

“Fine,” Andrew says, tossing his cigarette to the ground and rubbing it into cinders. “Tell me.”

Neil pauses for a second, takes a deep breath, as though he’s running up to what he wants to say. Andrew is struck by the thought that this might be one of Neil Josten’s fruitless attempts to prove that he’s a real person and not just a fake name with a borrowed face. “Does the name Nathan Wesninski mean anything to you?”

“Vaguely. He was the Butcher of Baltimore. He was in the papers for a while after his arrest.”

“Right,” Neil says, then goes quiet.

Andrew frowns, irritated by Neil’s dancing around the question. He promised Andrew the truth. “And?”

Neil whispers something into the receiver, but it’s too quiet to make out.

“Neil.”

“He was my father,” Neil says, angry and fierce, probably stronger than he meant it to be. “He was my father. My mother took me and ran. It killed her.”

Andrew’s jaw loosens. Because it makes sense—the furtive glances, the scars, the strange self-sufficiency despite being so obviously incompetent—but he still hadn’t seen it coming.

And then he thinks about it a little bit more, and he can’t help but snarl, “You really _are_ stupid, aren’t you?”

Neil doesn’t have to ask what he’s talking about. “I knew my time was up. I just wanted to play Exy.”

“You should have kept running in the other direction,” Andrew says, and he’s actually, genuinely getting worked up about this. “You could have _lived._ Was your Exy obsession really worth your life?”

“Yes.”

The silence that follows is heavy, laden with Neil’s solid resolution and Andrew’s incredulity. There’s a lot of things that he _wants_ to say (which mostly begin and end with _stupid),_ except he doubts anything will get through that thick skull.

Finally, for lack of anything better to say, Andrew rasps, “You’re a runner up until it saves your life.”

Neil laughs, a sound that tears from the base of his throat like broken glass. “I’m stupid like that.”

Andrew wants to punch Neil in the throat to keep him from making that sound ever again. More than that, he wants Neil to be on the roof beside him, stealing the cigarette from his fingers.

For a fleeting moment, he wonders what it would have been like to simply play Exy with Neil like the other man wanted to before he was spirited to the Nest. He wonders what it would have been like if Neil Josten had been a real person and not a specter on the run from his past.

He wonders, in a part of himself he doesn’t dare touch, what it would have been like to taste Neil’s salty skin beneath his tongue.

It’s an idle fantasy, and he pushes it away the moment he feels the thought forming, but the images it leaves behind linger. He shakes his head and says, “Anything else you want to tell me?”

“Not for now.” There’s a quiet shuffling sound in the background. “Can I call you again sometime? To tell you the rest?”

“Do what you want,” Andrew responds, and then hangs up the phone.

* * *

Andrew is knee deep in research on Nathan Wesninski when Aaron blazes into the dorm room and throws his backpack against the desk. He looks up at the sound and leans back in his chair to watch when he realizes that this little tantrum is more than just his brother’s usual bad mood. He wonders who’s about to receive the blunt end of Aaron’s temper.

“Aaron?” Nicky asks, perking up from the video game console. Kevin looks over, rolls his eyes, and turns the volume up on his headphones.

Then Aaron rounds on Andrew, and Andrew barely has time to realise that his brother’s ire is directed at him before his brother is upon him.

Aaron knows better than to touch him, but he does crowd right into his space, eyes glittering and anger frothing like a raging storm. He flexes his fingers at his side, and wonders if this is the moment that Aaron finally decides to grow a spine.

Then Aaron snarls, “Did you say something to her?”

Andrew doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but he’s not about to let Aaron know that he has the upper hand. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”

Aaron lets out a sound like a wounded animal, and then he reaches out and curls his fists into Andrew’s collar. Andrew has to half-rise from his seat to avoid his airway getting cut off, and he closes his hands over Aaron’s, but otherwise doesn’t react. He’s curious to see where this little tantrum is leading.

“Katelyn!” Aaron spits.

At this point Nicky has jumped from the chair and is hovering in the corner of the room, too terrified to try and break them apart but not willing to leave them alone. Kevin is eyeing them with uncertainty, one hand lingering in the air underneath his headphones like he’s considering removing them.

“Oh. _Her,”_ Andrew says conversationally to disguise the dark stab of anger rising from beneath the surface. “I thought I told you what would happen if you talked to her again.”

Then, unexpectedly, Aaron hisses, “Not that! She’s insisting that—that we _talk.”_ He says _talk_ like it’s a poisonous word fit to burn.

Andrew’s eyebrows rise, genuinely surprised for the first time over the course of the conversation. “She must be dumber than she looks.”

Aaron shakes Andrew’s collar. “Don’t you talk about her like that.”

He’s fully aware of the fact that Aaron doesn’t actually want to talk. Why would he say something now when he’s been quiet for all these years? But it seems he’s misread his brother, because in the next second Aaron lets go and turns away, all frenetic energy and barely controlled anger. Andrew feels off-kilter; he doesn’t quite have a handle on this conversation, which makes something deep in him twist.

“Fine,” Aaron spits, whipping around and glaring furiously. “Fine. Let’s hear your reasoning. Why the fuck did you kill my mother?”

Nicky chokes, and Kevin finally removes his headphones, losing all interest in the computer. Andrew ignores them both and keeps his eyes fixed on Aaron. “I told her what would happen if she laid another hand on you. She had no right to look so surprised.”

Aaron doesn’t move, barely seems to _breathe,_ but he spits out,“Don’t you dare lie to me.”

“She was nothing to me,” Andrew says, fury rising beneath the surface at yet another reminder that his brother didn’t trust his word, didn’t trust _him._ “Why else would I have killed her?”

Aaron turns around and throws all the stuff from his desk, which sloughs to the floor with a loud bang. When he speaks, though, he doesn’t sound as furious as he was just seconds before. “How the hell was I supposed to know that? You barely talked to me, you would barely look at me. I’m not fucking psychic.”

“Just because you forgot about our promise does not mean that I did,” Andrew responds in tight, clipped tones. “And fuck you for expecting anything else.”

The way Aaron looks at him when he says that, pleading and helpless and _lost,_ makes Andrew want to punch him in the face. Andrew sure as hell doesn’t want to help him now, not after years of misplaced anger and hurt, of gross misconceptions that Aaron could’ve corrected if he’d just fucking _asked._

It shouldn’t have taken this long for his twin to believe him, because if Aaron should know anything, it’s that Andrew never goes back on his promises.

Then Aaron bows his head, all the fight going out of him at once. Andrew’s not done, though. He wants to scream, wants to _rage,_ wants to—

Nicky takes one hesitant step forward, the movement as noticeable as a gunshot in the tension.

Andrew buries his fury deep, clamps down with every ounce of control that he has.

“Are we done here?” he asks, flat and dead.

Aaron doesn’t say anything, and Andrew takes this as acquiescence. He strides out of the room.

He needs a smoke.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please note, after this chapter there will be a one day hiatus before i start posting 11-20!

**Joshua**

Joshua is in the middle of eating a bowl of cereal, scrolling through the daily news on his computer, when he spots it. He pauses with the spoon halfway to his mouth, uncertain as to whether or not what he’s reading is real. He blinks a couple of times, and then clicks on the link. The first couple of lines put any of his doubts to rest, and the corners of his lips turn down into a frown.

_Edgar Allen has just announced that Neil Josten has just transferred to the Ravens._

He skims through the article and he can feel his mood sinking as he reads. There’s not any new information; it’s mostly just people speculating on the reasons for the transfer, how lucky Josten is to have been able to transfer to the best team in the league, and he feels…

Something twists in his gut, and his mouth goes dry, because this article is lying in such a fundamental way that it just feels...wrong.

Not that Josten went to a better team, because he _did._ But it wasn’t...the transfer wasn’t voluntary. Josten had no other choice. Riko threatened Andrew, and so Josten went to the Ravens.

Joshua knows this. It isn’t new information. There shouldn’t be any sort of sting to it, there shouldn’t be the deep, visceral feeling of _wrongness,_ but there _is._

The Ravens were in the right! Josten thought he could go against Riko, so of course Riko had to put him in his place. It makes sense; it was _justified._

_Kevin looks so terrified and determined when he practices,_ a niggling voice in his head says. _The Ravens hurt him, and he doesn’t want to go back. He just wants to play Exy. Why would Riko want to stop him from playing Exy?_

_Kevin is brilliant with just his right hand—imagine what he could do with his left._

_Kevin is better than Riko._

He frowns and closes the article, then turns off the screen and puts his phone face-down on the table. He finishes the rest of his breakfast, but there’s a bad taste in his mouth that has nothing to do with the food.

He’s so caught up in his own sour mood that he almost leaps out of his skin when his phone buzzes against the hard surface. He picks up the device and looks at it, and a half-smile crosses his face when he sees that it’s Katelyn. At the very least she’s not caught up in the clusterfuck that is the Foxes exy team.

Right now, he has a very dire desire to talk to someone who doesn’t have anything to do with Exy.

**Katelyn:** want to meet up for coffee and studying?   
  
**Joshua:** sure be there in an hour   
  


Almost an hour later, he’s unbuttoning his jacket as he steps into the library, pushing his hair back from his face. It takes him a couple of seconds to spot Katelyn, who’s standing against a wall, expressionless as she taps at her phone. She looks as impeccable as usual.

“Hey,” Joshua says.

Katelyn looks up with a smile. “Hey, Joshua.”

And then to his complete and utter shock, she steps forward and hugs him around the middle. It only lasts a second, and she’s tiny compared to him, but she’s warm and firm, and when she steps away he feels startled and off-kilter.

She must see the look on his face, because her smile drops, and her hand rises to her mouth. “Sorry, are you uncomfortable with hugs? I’m a really huggy person, but—”

“No,” Joshua rasps, the imprint of where she’d pressed up against him lingering like warmth from the sun. He doesn’t even think about censoring himself before he says, “I just—I haven’t been hugged in a long time.”

He knows right away that he shouldn’t have said anything, because the look she gives him is sad and pinched. _Pitying._ He feels too exposed, and he looks to the ground, studying his feet to avoid her gaze.

Then Katelyn clears her throat and says, “Well, thanks for meeting me. Want to find a place to sit?”

And just like that, the awkwardness passes. Joshua glances at her sharply, but she only smiles, warm and kind. For a moment he is so deeply grateful that it almost takes his breath away.

They make their way to one of the empty tables and sit down, setting down their coffees on the table in front of them. They take out their Spanish homework and soon fall into a comfortable silence, occasionally stopping to ask a question, or debate a conjugation. It’s nice, and once again Joshua is relieved that Katelyn doesn’t have some sort of Exy-related hidden agenda.

Then Katelyn leans back and says, with a new note of nervousness in her voice, “So, Joshua.”

He leans back as well, watching her carefully. “So, Katelyn.”

She smiles faintly, then shakes her head and continues, “You remember that guy I was talking about a few weeks ago? The one whose brother was complicated?”

“How could I forget?” Joshua asks, rolling his eyes.

“I told him,” she bursts out, her fingers tightening around her notebook, crinkling the paper. “I told him that he could either fight for me or I would...I would leave. I did it.”

It takes Joshua a second to digest that, but when he does his eyes widen, and a grin splits his face. “You _didn’t.”_

Her grin is nervous but impudent, like a child who’s just gotten away with a scheme. “I did.”

“What’d he say?” Joshua presses, all the while thinking, _I wish I’d been there to see the jerk’s face._

“Well…” Katelyn’s grin fades, and she bites her lip. “I mean, he was pretty mad at first, but then he texted me later and said...that he would do it. That I was the best thing that’d ever happened to him, and he didn’t want to lose me.”

Joshua’s eyebrows fly up toward his forehead. “So he’s not as stupid as I thought he was.”

“Oh, hush,” Katelyn swats at his arm. “He’s—he’s actually really smart, you know? It’s just his brother…”

Joshua raises his hands in surrender, but the only disastrous sibling relationship he can compare it to is that of the Minyards. If the sibling relationship Katelyn is in the middle of is half as bad as _that_ clusterfuck, it must still be pretty terrible. “Complicated, I know.”

Katelyn smiles and shakes her head at that. “I just—I wanted to thank you, you know? I don’t know if I would’ve been brave enough to tell Aaron if you hadn’t said anything.”

_Aaron._

No. It couldn’t be.

“Of course,” Joshua says faintly. “Aaron, you said?”

“Yeah. I haven’t told you about him before, have I?” Katelyn agrees, not seeming to notice the change in tone. “He’s on the Exy team. I’m a Vixen. We’re both pre-med, actually. That’s how we met.”

Joshua stares into his coffee blankly for a second. _You’ve got to be kidding me._

“I have to go,” he says, grabbing his backpack.

“Everything okay?” she asks, staring up at him in confusion.

Joshua pauses for a second, looking back at her. There’s no sign of malice in her eyes, no hidden agenda. She probably had no idea that he’s on the Exy team, that he’s a Raven plant. She wouldn’t have hidden her connection to the team from him if she’d known.

He’s surprised to find that he actually believes that.

Taking care to soften his tone, Joshua tells her, “Yeah, everything’s fine. Tell you about it later, okay?”

That seems to mollify her, at least a little bit. “Okay,” Katelyn responds, sitting back in her chair. “See ya later.”

Joshua nods shortly and turns to go. Only then does he let his fury rise to the surface, because how _dare_ he? Now that Joshua has met Katelyn, understands her, and is _friends_ with her—

And they are friends, Joshua realizes with a jolt of shock so strong that it stutters his footsteps. He didn’t intend to make any friends at PSU, but Katelyn just sort of...happened. He...likes her more than anyone else on the Raven team, where bonds are laden with competitive tension. Being around Katelyn is so... _uncomplicated._

And Aaron—

Joshua lets out a frustrated growl, shakes his head, and starts walking faster. He has a _bone_ to pick.

* * *

**Kevin**

Kevin sets his bag down on the ground, doing his best to ignore the odd, empty space at his side. He can feel the gazes of the rest of the Foxes burning into him but he doesn’t look up, affecting a calm and uncaring demeanor. It’s not that he thinks that they’ll hurt him; he’s just...gotten used to taking Andrew wherever he goes.

“Hey, Day,” Allison shouts. “Where’s the other monster?”

Kevin turns and glares at her, almost eager to pick a fight. “Not important. Practice continues with or without them.”

There’s a clattering from behind him, and Kevin turns around to see Wymack and Dan looking at him. The latter looks concerned, but the former looks deeply unimpressed.

“Seriously, Kevin,” Wymack says, raising an eyebrow. “Where is Aaron?”

Kevin turns back to his stuff and mutters, “They’re at Betsy’s.”

_“Together?”_ Dan demands, stunned. The other Foxes look equally shocked, except for Joshua, oddly enough. The Raven is standing very still at one end of the court, twirling his stick with almost absent motions.

“It was Aaron’s idea,” Nicky adds, finally putting in his two cents. “Andrew didn’t like it, but Aaron can be persuasive when he wants to be.”

Kevin snorts quietly. _Didn’t like it_ and _persuasive_ are gross understatements. Aaron had been furiously and doggedly determined, while Andrew had been resolute and cold. In the end, the only reason Aaron had won was because Andrew had gotten tired of the conversation and had waved his hand in a ‘do whatever you want’ sort of way. Kevin has a feeling that whatever is going on in Betsy’s office, it isn’t going to be very productive or pleasant.

Then a voice says, “So, is Aaron not coming back today?”

At first Kevin doesn’t recognize the voice. It isn’t until Matt turns to look at Joshua incredulously that Kevin recognizes the cool, crisp tone.

_Why does he care?_ Kevin thinks, staring at the man. _He hates Aaron, and he hates this team._

After a second Joshua seems to realize how strange they think his question is, because his composed facade fades, and he shifts uncomfortably under their scrutiny. He waits for a couple more seconds before shaking his head and looking away. “Never mind.”

“Right,” Dan says, shooting one last bemused glance at Joshua before turning back to Kevin. _“Will_ they be back?”

“Presumably,” Kevin responds shortly.

“If no one gets murdered.” Nicky quips cheekily.

“That,” Dan says, “is _not_ as reassuring as you seem to think it is.”

Kevin shrugs. He’s not sure what Dan wants him to say. Aaron and Andrew’s relationship is so fractured that he’s pretty sure it would take a miracle for them to get along in any capacity.

“Anyway,” Wymack says, clapping his hands together to get everyone’s attention. “Regardless of whether or not the little brats are going to show up, we have to start practice. Dan, you’re in charge of warmups.”

“Sure,” Dan responds, then claps her hands together. “You heard him! Five laps, let’s go!”

Kevin keeps looking toward the entrance as practice progresses, checking to see if Andrew and Aaron will ever show up. Despite his discomfort, he can’t help but notice how well the team seems to be getting on without Andrew and Aaron’s antagonism. Nicky blossoms under the upperclassmen’s attention like a flower turning toward the sun.

He would almost call them friendly with each other, if not for their obvious disregard of Joshua.

An hour later, there’s the _clang_ of a door slamming open, and Aaron stalks into the gym, his face a mask of rage. For a second Kevin wonders if Aaron’s finally snapped and killed Andrew, but he’s corrected when Andrew meanders in a second later. Neither of the twins say a word, despite the intense scrutiny they’re both subject to.

“Well?” Kevin asks as Andrew passes him to stand in the goal.

“Shut up,” Andrew responds, almost reflexively.

Wymack shoots the twins an unimpressed look. “Is this going to be an ongoing thing?”

“No,” Andrew says, with finality.

“Yes,” Aaron snaps, glaring at Andrew.

“Okay,” Wymack says, and then gestures at them to continue with practice.

It’s only after practice that the _really_ interesting stuff happens.

It starts with a furtive conversation at the edges of the locker room. Kevin only notices it because Andrew lifts his head and looks his twin’s way, like a bloodhound catching onto a scent. Kevin follows his gaze, and is met with the surprising sight of Joshua and Aaron hissing at each other. Aaron’s wearing of an expression of shock mixed with growing fury, while Joshua looks plain acidic. It’s the most emotion Kevin’s seen on his face since he arrived at PSU.

Then Joshua raises his voice. “You’re such a dick. What the fuck does she see in you?”

“Keep your voice down!” Aaron hisses, glancing at Andrew in alarm. The other Foxes are fixing the pair with a fascinated look.

_She?_ Kevin wonders.

“No! God. You feed her shit and expect her to eat it.” Joshua shakes his head, looking disgusted. “You’re lucky she’s giving you a second chance. She’s _far_ too good for you.”

“It’s none of your _fucking_ business!” Aaron shouts, his face turning bright red, his hands balling into fists.

Joshua rises to meet him. “She’s _my_ friend, so it _is_ my business!”

Andrew shifts.

It’s such a small movement that most wouldn’t notice it, but living with the Monsters for as long as the Foxes have, they’ve learned to recognize danger. Renee jumps to her feet and inserts herself between Aaron and Joshua, a palm on Joshua’s chest to push him away from Aaron. Even now, she has the wisdom to keep her hands off Aaron.

Then Matt strides over to stand beside the three of them, eyes darting nervously over to Andrew, who still hasn’t quite relaxed. “Woah, guys. Take it easy.”

“He’s being a dick to my friend,” Joshua snarls, and Kevin can’t help but raise an eyebrow at that. Kevin thought that Joshua didn’t have any friends at PSU. He’s pretty sure that Riko would have forbidden it. “I won’t just _take it easy.”_

“He’s friends with Katelyn?” Kevin hears Nicky mutter.

Matt’s expression shifts with the confusion that they all must be feeling. Then he shakes his head and steps forward, laying his hand on Joshua’s shoulder. Renee steps away, letting him speak. “Listen, we are _all_ aware of the fact that Aaron sucks sometimes—”

_“Hey—”_ Aaron interjects.

“—but you won’t like the consequences if you lay a hand on him,” Matt finishes smoothly. “Understand?”

Joshua glances over at Andrew, and for the first time seems to notice the blank, uncaring expression, the way the Monster has leaned forward in his seat like a coiled spring. The corners of his eyes tighten and his lips turn downward like he’s thinking of going after Aaron anyway, but the bravado fades after a moment. He sends one last poisonous look toward Aaron before shaking off Matt’s hand and turning away.

“Whatever,” Joshua mutters.

Andrew finally relaxes, and Kevin lets out the breath he doesn’t realize that he was holding.

Even after they get back to their rooms, though, Kevin can’t stop thinking about the incident. Joshua had really, genuinely thought about punching Aaron in the face for Katelyn’s sake. He’d thought about risking Andrew’s wrath for the sake of a girl he’d only known for a couple of months, despite the fact that he _knows_ how dangerous Andrew is.

Kevin had thought that Joshua was a Raven through and through, an Exy machine blindly following Riko’s orders without question. But maybe...

Maybe Joshua isn’t a lost cause.

This isn’t the first time Joshua has shown more humanity than most Ravens have; it’s only the most overt incident. He knows that the other Foxes have noticed it, too. The upperclassmen had all been giving Joshua’s back long, considering looks.

He genuinely doubts that he’ll be able to get through to Joshua; there’s too much bad blood between them. But maybe if he talks to Renee, tries to get her to draw him into the upperclassmen’s fold...

* * *

Kevin and Andrew are halfway out of the door to go to night practices when Aaron says, “Wait.”

“What is it?” Kevin asks, frowning. He glances at Andrew, but the other man doesn’t react.

That doesn’t mean much, though. Andrew and Aaron’s cold war has reached new heights in the last couple of days. Andrew has been pretending that Aaron doesn’t exist for the entire day, and Aaron has been becoming increasingly more and more obnoxious in response.

“Nicky, come on,” Aaron says. His cousin jerks his nose out of the magazine he was reading, blinking owlishly in surprise. “We’re going to the night practice.”

“What?” Nicky asks, gaping.

“No,” Andrew says.

Kevin glares at the obstinate twin. _“Yes._ We need him, Andrew.”

“He’s not coming because he wants to be useful,” Andrew responds, slow and deliberate, like he’s explaining a difficult problem to a child. “He’s coming because he thinks it’ll endear him to me.”

“Fuck you,” Aaron snaps, but doesn’t back down.

“He knows that this is important to you,” Nicky says quietly, and the three of them all turn to look at him. “Andrew, let him come.”

Kevin forgets that Nicky was Andrew and Aaron’s guardian while they were in highschool. He’s not always the best at handling them, but he generally knows what they need to hear.

Kevin takes a deep breath and turns sideways so Andrew is the only one who can hear him. He says, “Andrew, you know we need him. We need the whole team to be a part of this if we want to get Neil back.”

Andrew stares at Kevin. Not surprised, not angry, just...considering, maybe?

“Look who decided to grow a spine,” Andrew says, sounding almost impressed. “Fine.”

Then Andrew leaves. Kevin gapes after him, too shocked to move, because that _almost_ sounded like a compliment. Then he shakes his head and follows the man, grinning to himself, because they finally have the whole team coming to the extra practices. Kevin didn’t even have to make another deal to do it.

They _might_ actually pull this off.

Several hours later, Kevin is regretting thinking that, because he’s pretty sure this is what it feels like to eat one’s own words.

“Holy _shit,_ can you be a little less of a dick when you say crap like that?” Allison demands, throwing her racquet to the ground.

Kevin rolls his eyes and barely manages to keep his disparaging comments to himself. He’s right, he _knows_ that he’s right, but Renee had quietly advised him to ‘be more diplomatic’ and ‘less insulting’ before practice had started. So he’s trying, even though it’s very difficult.

The thing is, they’re not going to get any better like this, with Allison pushing back against every bit of advice he gives her and Nicky complaining about how _tired_ he is and Andrew, well. Being Andrew. Sometimes Kevin really, _really_ misses the Ravens, if only because he had the authority to order people to take practice seriously.

So yes, he’s frustrated and pissed and quickly reaching the end of his fraying patience, and it’s making him even more snappish than he already was.

Finally he grits out, “Maybe I’d be a little less of a _dick_ if you were taking this seriously.”

“Okay everyone, take five,” Dan says quickly, clapping her hands together. “Get some water.”

Allison lets out derisive snort and saunters away. Nicky throws an arm around Aaron’s shoulders and they stagger off the court together. Andrew doesn’t move from where he’s been sitting, disinterested, in the goal, and Matt plops down next to the wall, watching Dan and Kevin with a wary eye.

_What’s he expecting?_ Kevin wonders darkly. _For me to attack her?_

The thought only serves to drive his bad mood even deeper, like a nail through a wall.

“Kevin, listen,” Dan says under her breath, but Kevin interrupts her.

“No, you listen. They’re not taking this seriously. I _thought_ you said that they were willing to work with me.”

Dan shakes her head, pursing her lips. She looks just as frustrated as he does. “They _are,_ Kevin, if you would be civil for _two seconds._ You can’t yell at us every time we mess up!”

“I wouldn’t yell if they actually put some effort—” Kevin realizes that his voice is too loud, glances around, and accidentally meets Matt’s eye. His teammate raises one unimpressed eyebrow, and he grits his teeth and attempts to moderate his tone. “I wouldn’t yell if they were actually trying. They can do better than this, they’re just not applying themselves.”

Dan’s eyes flutter upward for a second and her lips move silently, as though praying. Then she looks back down. “Kevin, you do realize that not all of us grew up in a family obsessed with Exy? We’re not going to be as good as you want us to be right away. You’re going to have to be patient with us.”

And here is the crux of the matter, the reason Kevin’s been getting so frustrated.

“You don’t get it, do you?” He demands lowly. Dan’s eyes widen at the change in tone. “You just don’t get it. We don’t have _time_ to be patient. The Ravens have already mastered this. If we want to win against them, we can’t half-ass it. We _have_ to take every practice seriously.”

Dan wavers. She has to see the sense in what he’s saying.

Finally she sighs and runs her hand through her sweaty curls. “I hear you Kevin, I do, but screaming at us isn’t going to motivate us.”

Kevin rolls his eyes. He knows what he wants to say: that he wouldn’t need to scream if the others would just put in the effort. And then Dan will say that the others won’t be motivated if he screams at them. It’s a circular argument they’ve had before, one that Kevin is getting sick of.

But…

This isn’t just about him or the team anymore. This is about getting Neil out of the Nest, this is about Kevin finally getting free of Riko’s influence. It’s even about possibly helping Jean. This has become bigger than his selfish desires, and it’s time he starts acting like it.

“Fine,” he says. “Fine. What do you want me to do?”

Dan shoots him a startled look, like she genuinely didn’t think that he would listen to her. Then her expression softens into something more pleased, and she sounds almost friendly when she says, “Remind us why we’re here, Kevin.”

Kevin looks at her for a second, and finally understands how this headstrong, ferocious girl became captain.

“Okay,” he says finally.


	11. Chapter 11

**Kevin**

The game against SUA goes well. Better than Kevin expected, actually, although learning that UT took out Belmonte certainly improved everyone’s performance. The rest of the team is full of energy despite being exhausted from the game, and even Joshua has a half-smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

All throughout the match, he refused to let Kengo’s hospitalization affect his game. He _couldn’t_ think about what Riko had to be doing in retribution to Neil and Jean. If he stopped focusing on his game, then he wouldn’t be able to help them.

But oh, it digs at him. It _aches._

“Kevin. Aaron!” Wymack shouts over the din. “You’re up for press duty!”

Kevin scowls. He _hates_ press duty. But then he shakes his head and forces a smile on his face, because it’s what he was trained to do.

Kevin glances at Aaron and thinks that at least the smaller man is going to make him look positively charming; Aaron is glowering at nothing in particular. Kevin doubts he’ll respond to any of the questions asked.

The first few questions are expected—how he felt the game went, how he thinks the next game will go, his predictions on the rest of the season. He answers them easily, barely even having to think before he speaks.

And then someone asks, “Did Josten say why he decided to leave the Foxes?”

Kevin freezes in place, jaw working uselessly, because Neil didn’t _decide_ to leave the Foxes. There was no deciding, it was a forced decision, but he can’t _say_ that. He feels as though Riko’s and Tetsuji’s eyes are burning holes in the back of his skull, despite them not even being here.

“I—” he starts, darting a look at Aaron, despite the fact that he knows that the smaller man isn’t going to be any help. “It was a...mutual decision.”

“What do you have to say about Josten’s transfer to the Ravens?” A woman shouts, and the other reporters go quiet, eager to hear his response. “Do you think the Foxes will be able to win without him?”

Kevin’s been practicing his media face ever since he was a little kid. He knows how to play them like a fiddle, slide into a persona of easy charm and benign words with barely a thought. But that question startles him—he knows it shouldn’t have, he should’ve been expecting it, especially after the last one—and when he opens his mouth the words don’t come out.

_Say something,_ he begs himself silently. _Say something charming and empty like ‘we’re sad to see him go but we’re eager to face him again on the court’!_

He can’t bring himself to, though. Not when the last time he saw Neil he was bowed and still, Riko’s hand clamped around the back of his neck like a vice or a collar.

If he speaks, he’s going to say, _Neil never wanted to leave. He hates it there, and we hate that he’s there, and we want him to come home before the Nest breaks him._

Then from beside Kevin comes an unexpected voice. “Do you think the Foxes are so weak?”

Kevin jumps and stares at Aaron, who until this moment has been perfectly silent and dour. The shorter man’s eyes are glittering in a way he’s never seen before, charged from within.

Kevin reaches out and squeezes Aaron’s shoulder, a quiet warning, but he just shakes the hand off and continues, “We did the Ravens a favor when we lent them Josten. Now they have a little bit better chance of beating us in the Spring.”

Kevin wants to sink into the earth. He wants to go and hide in a corner far, far away from this growing clusterfuck. It’s all he can do to keep the polite smile on his face.

Just as Aaron had known they would, the woman’s eyebrows jump up with interest. They all lean forward, sensing a story. “Lent?”

Aaron looks surprised, but anyone who knows him would have realized that face is complete and utter bullshit. “Oh, the Ravens didn’t tell you? We took pity on them, it really seemed like they needed a replacement for their number two. _You_ saw how fast they put that four on Josten’s face after they lost Kevin. And it’s a good experience for Josten, working with a team that’s not as good as ours.”

Kevin chokes on his spit, and abruptly realizes that they need to leave right now. This is the equivalent of swinging a bat at a hornet’s nest, Riko is going to kill Aaron, and they need to leave _right now._

“Thank you for your questions, that will be all for today,” Kevin says as politely as he can manage while he’s dragging Aaron away.

Aaron smirks the whole way back, looking far, far too pleased with himself. Kevin wants to smack the expression off of his face, because what the hell was he _thinking?_ He thought that he would stop having these issues after Neil went to the Ravens. They don’t need _another_ idiot with a big mouth.

As soon as they’re out of view, Kevin turns around, grabs Aaron’s collar, and slams him against the wall. “What the _hell_ is your problem?”

Aaron tenses, glances at Kevin’s hand, snorts, and finally relaxes. Kevin hates that Aaron’s finally figured out that Andrew will kill anyone who touches him, even when he deserves it.

“Someone needed to say it,” Aaron says, shrugging one shoulder dismissively. “And _you_ certainly weren’t going to.”

Kevin is gobsmacked. He feels as though he’s looking at another Andrew, but that’s impossible. Kevin has learned how to tell the two apart. These are genuinely Aaron’s words, unless he’s been coerced somehow.

He trips over a word, then another, before finally shaking his head and forcing himself to speak slowly and deliberately. “You _hate_ the way Neil used to go after the press. You said that it was _dangerous.”_

It’s not a question, but Kevin’s not even sure what he would ask. _Why are you copying that suicidal idiot if you know that he was suicidal? Were you hoping to accomplish something, and if so, what?_

Aaron just looks at him, and for a second he looks so much like Andrew that Kevin almost takes a step back. But then the man shakes his head and pushes Kevin’s hand away, dispelling the image.

“I don’t care about Josten,” Aaron says, “But I’ve decided to take this team seriously, and Josten _is_ a Fox.”

“Doing this won’t endear Andrew to you,” Kevin insists for lack of anything better to say. He’s not even sure where to _begin._ “He hates Exy. You know he does.”

Aaron fixes him with an unimpressed look. “Are you sure about that? Because it seems to me like he’s taken a vested interest in the team, and I have a feeling it has everything to do with Josten. Did you two make a deal?”

And now Kevin really _is_ gaping.

“How the—” he rasps. “How did you—”

“Despite what you and everyone else seems to think,” Aaron says coolly, brushing by Kevin’s shoulder, “I _do_ pay attention to Andrew’s fucked up logic.”

* * *

**Joshua**

Joshua is boredly flipping through his Spanish homework when there’s a knock on his door. He looks up, surprised; he and Matt have gotten good at pretending the other doesn’t exist.

“Um,” Joshua says, then clears his throat and calls out, “Who is it?”

“It’s us,” Matt responds. “Can we come in?”

_Us?_ Joshua wonders. For a moment he thinks that this might be an attempt to finally take him out, but then he shakes his head. Especially over the past couple of weeks, he’s come to learn that most of the Foxes are all bark and no bite. He turns around in his chair and says, “Sure.”

‘Us’ turns out to be Matt, Renee, Dan, and Allison. The first two give him almost friendly waves, but the latter two fix him with deeply unimpressed, cool stares. Joshua shifts in his seat, uncomfortably aware of the fact that they are between him and the door.

“So we were thinking—” Matt begins, rubbing his hands together.

“You’re friends with Katelyn?” Allison interrupts, raising one perfectly manicured eyebrow.

“Um,” Joshua repeats, looking between the four of them uncertainly. “Is this an intervention?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Allison says, waving a hand dismissively. “Katelyn is a big girl. She can be friends with who she wants.”

“You _are_ friends with her, though,” Renee adds quietly, insistently, her eyes calm and luminous.

“Yes,” Joshua says warily, now very concerned about the possibility that he’s going to get beaten up. He’s also mildly surprised when his stomach drops at the thought of the Foxes telling Katelyn who he actually is: a transfer from Edgar Allan, meant to tear the team apart from the inside out.

If Katelyn were to find out…

“Relax,” Matt says, glancing at Renee and Allison in warning. “We were just surprised. You didn’t seem like you were interested in making friends here.”

Joshua glances at his homework to avoid looking them in the eye and shrugs, expecting them to leave now that their curiosity has been satisfied. Several seconds pass, but there’s no sound of movement.

Joshua looks up again. The four of them are staring at him expectantly in a way that is deeply unsettling.

“Well?” Joshua asks. “Are we done here?”

“No,” Dan says. “We were wondering if you wanted to come clubbing with us.”

For a moment Joshua wonders if he’s misheard. He blinks, furrows his eyebrows, and then frowns when he realizes that this must be a joke. Instead of feeling angry, though, he just feels tired, because if they had been serious, he might have said yes. “Try it on someone else.”

“We’re not messing with you,” Matt says quietly, and when Joshua looks at him, his dark eyes are warm and honest. “It’s an honest invitation.”

And Joshua does not understand. He has no idea _why_ they would invite him; it’s been several weeks since he rebuffed Matt’s last attempt at friendship, and nothing has changed since then. He’s kept to himself, and the Foxes have let him.

“Why?” he finally asks.

Renee shrugs and says, like the answer is simple. “You called Aaron out for being a dick to your friend. That’s not something a bad person would do.”

Well, Joshua isn’t about to argue with someone who just called him ‘not a bad person’. It feels weird to get an almost compliment from the Foxes after all the antagonism between them over the past few weeks.

Then Joshua looks down at his sweatpants and sighs. “I don’t have anything to wear.”

The four upperclassmen all zero in on his sweatpants, their eyebrows creasing with identical looks of consternation.

“How tall are you?” Allison asks finally.

“Five-ten,” Joshua responds, already knowing that it’s a lost cause. Matt is considerably taller than he is.

“That’s my height,” Allison says, giving him a long, considering up-and-down. “We’re about the same size. How do you feel about girl’s clothes?”

Joshua looks at Allison’s expression (gleeful), Dan’s (challenging), Matt’s (hopeful), and Renee’s (serene). He considers the likelihood of receiving an opportunity like this in the future (slim), and how much it is worth to him (more than he’d like to admit).

He steals his resolve, and takes a deep breath.

* * *

**Renee**

To his credit, despite the fact that he is clearly uncomfortable, Joshua wears the outfit Allison gives him without complaint.

“It looks good on you,” Renee tells him.

Joshua only shrugs dismissively and pushes his hair out of his face, but she’s being honest. The long black skinny jeans make his long legs look even longer than normal, and the ostentatious, shimmering golden blouse and black jacket brings out the yellow in his eyes.

Most surprising is the fact that when Allison had insisted on clipping a fake earring onto one of his ears and lining his eyes with black, he had let her. Both Dan and Matt had given him a surprised, appreciative side eye when he’d finally finished getting ready.

“So, now what?” Joshua asks, blinking his striking yellow-brown eyes in obvious discomfort.

“Now,” Dan says, slamming a bottle of vodka on the table and gesturing toward the room at large, “We drink.”

Joshua blinks in confusion at that. “I thought we were going clubbing?”

Renee almost cringes at Joshua’s obvious ignorance of partying in college, but stops herself. The Ravens were likely never allowed to go out or party or anything of the sort. On the other side of the couch, she sees Matt wince. Allison and Dan look delighted, though, as though it was Christmas day and they have just received the best present ever.

“Oh, you’re _precious,”_ Allison coos. “First, we pregame. Alcohol is expensive in clubs, you know? That’s why you get drunk _before_ you leave the house.”

Joshua suddenly looks as though he is very much regretting his decision. Then he takes a deep breath, pushes his hair away from his face again, and sits down in front of the table. “Okay, hit me.”

While Dan and Allison pour themselves and Joshua some shots, Renee shuffles closer to Matt.

“Keep an eye on him, would you?” she asks gently. “I think this might be his first time going out. I don’t want him to get in trouble.”

Matt lets out a sharp snort. “I’ll do my best.”

Then, after a couple of seconds, he adds. “Remember when Neil went out for the first time? God.”

“What happened?” Joshua asks, blinking owlishly at them over his red solo cup. Renee hadn’t realized that he’d been paying attention. For that matter, she hadn’t thought that he would show any interest in Neil’s history with the Foxes, considering his obvious contempt of the man.

“Well,” Matt starts, looking at Dan.

“He paid someone to knock him out,” Dan finishes, grinning as she pours herself another shot. “And then hitched a ride with a trucker all the way from Columbia to PSU.”

“Take a shot, Joshua,” Allison tells him firmly.

Joshua does as he’s told, but his face is incredulous as he does so. “He did _what?”_

“To be fair,” Matt adds diplomatically, “The monsters _did_ drug him.”

Joshua gags, coughing and spitting on the vodka, his face turning a bright red. Allison pounds his back enthusiastically.

As soon as Joshua gets all his breath back, he wheezes, “They did _what?”_

“I was so mad,” Matt adds, chuckling sheepishly. “I almost started shouting at him.”

“Little did we know that the bastard was only going to get worse,” Allison says sagely, raising her solo cup in a toast. “RIP to Riko Moriyama at Kathy’s interview. He will _not_ be missed.”

Renee raises her cup as well, as Joshua chokes on his drink again.

They stuff him full of shots while regaling him with the sagas of Neil Josten for the next hour. Joshua is tall, but he’s pretty wiry and unused to drinking, so the alcohol hits him harder than they were expecting. By the end of the hour, Joshua is wavering back and forth, in stitches over the story about Neil’s befuddlement over his own attractiveness.

“Tha’s enough of that,” Allison decides, getting to her feet. “Come’n, Joshua, it’s time to go—” she hiccups, giggles, and then grabs onto Joshua’s arm, trying to drag him to his feet. “—clubbin’. Let’s go!”

“No,” Joshua whines, grabbing onto her arm. “The world is—spinning. Too fast. Can’t move.”

“I don’t think any club will let them in at this point,” Renee says offhandedly to Matt.

“I don’t know,” Matt observes. “Some clubs are pretty lenient.”

“Probably not a good idea,” Dan says. She sounds coherent enough, but there’s still a glassy sheen in her eyes that signals that she is still very, very drunk. She’s just better at disguising it than Allison. “It’s the first time Joshua has ever been drinking like this. It’s too, um.”

She looks at Matt imploringly. Matt scoots over and wraps an arm around her shoulders, letting her cuddle against his side.

“Unsafe,” Matt agrees.

“Right, yes!” Dan looks pleased that she’s figured out the word. Renee has to bite down on a smile. “Unsafe. It wouldn’t be safe for us to go out like this.”

“I liked hearing about Josten,” Joshua slurs out from his position on the floor. He then frowns slightly. “Neil,” he says, to correct himself. “I didn’t know he was—was a person, you know.”

Matt and Dan share a sobering look. Renee frowns and leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees.

“Joshua,” she says carefully. Joshua’s probably too drunk to notice, but the other upperclassmen have all gone quiet, attention honed in on him. “What did Riko tell you about Neil?”

“That he’s bad,” Joshua says, like it’s the most simple thing in the world. “That he deserved to—to be punished.”

“For what?” Renee probes gently. A good Christian girl would feel bad about prying information from a man whose faculties aren’t all there, but as Andrew likes to say, she’s not entirely a good Christian girl. She tried, of course, but her friends were more important than her redemption.

Joshua’s face twists up, and he throws one arm over his eyes, like the light hurts them. “For going against the _king,_ of course,” He says. “No one goes against the king. He’s—the king, you know? You can’t go against the _king._ That’s like—whassat called—a coo. Like a Raven. Coop? The Raven ate something. Coop ate.”

“Coup d’etat,” Renee corrects.

“That’ssssit! Coup...d’etat.” Joshua slurs, coming down hard on the _t_. “You’re not supposed to do that. If you do, then the king gets to hurt you. It’s the rules.”

“Hm,” Renee hums, sharing a glance with the others. This is quickly straying into territory that Renee doesn’t want to hear from Joshua unless he’s sober. “Interesting. Why don’t you—”

“I’m gonna...tell you a secret,” Joshua pushes onward, seeming not to hear Renee. “I don’t much like the king. He scares me, and he’s not as good as he says he’s.”

For a moment there is perfect, horrified silence. Dan and Matt are staring at Joshua, and so is Allison, because Joshua has just admitted that Riko has hurt members of the team before, that he is scared of Riko. He has _also_ just admitted to thinking that Riko is not as good as he thinks, which is perhaps a far more dangerous opinion, especially for a Raven to have.

“Good to know,” Dan says in a high-pitched voice. “I think it’s time to go to bed now.”

The noise Joshua lets out is akin to that of a confused cat. “No club?”

“No club,” Matt says, getting to his feet and walking over to Joshua’s prone form. “You’re too drunk, Graham. We’re putting you to bed.”

“Oh,” Joshua says, sounding pleasantly surprised. “Tha’s...nice. Thanks.”

“He’s surprisingly sweet when he’s drunk,” Allison comments, looking much more sober than she had ten minutes ago, watching as Matt helps Joshua stagger to his feet. Her eyes are dark and sad, and Renee thinks that she sees Seth hiding in the corners of her face.

Allison falls quiet for a moment, then sighs. “I didn’t mean to get him that drunk. _Ugh._ I feel like shit.”

“It’s not your fault,” Renee says, shaking her head. “I shouldn’t have asked him those questions.”

“Well,” Allison sighs, getting to her feet. “Too late now.”

_No,_ Renee thinks, watching as Allison goes to help Matt finagle Joshua out of the room. _It’s not too late._ Because despite how awful Renee feels about how she got the information, she now knows that Joshua is not the loyal Raven that they all thought he was.

And _that_ is enough to give her hope.

* * *

Renee wakes up to several texts from Jean, and she goes from half-asleep to wide awake in two seconds flat. _God,_ she hadn’t even _considered_ how Kengo’s hospitalization would affect Jean and Neil. She opens up the message and sends a silent prayer that they are okay.

**Jean:** we're fine for now. Riko is losing control. I'm not sure how much longer we can hold out.  
  


Renee takes a slow, deep breath, and carefully types a response. Then she sets her phone down, folds her hands in front of her face, and begins to think.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to see warnings for this chapter, please check the end notes. it's a bit graphic in this chapter.

**Andrew**

Andrew leans against the top of his racquet, staring out over the court as the Foxes play the Catamounts.

He has to admit, when Kevin first talked to him about the nightly practices, he had been skeptical. The idea of Kevin and the Foxes being able to put up with each other long enough to make any real progress had been so ludicrous that it hadn’t occurred to him that it would  _ work. _

He stands corrected.

He’s never seen the Foxes act as a cohesive team. There’s always been a snappish, chaotic edge to all their plays, even after they banded together after Seth’s death. Now though, there’s a unity to them, a cohesion to their movements. Passes are focused and quick, communication between the backliners streamlined into precision.

They look  _ good. _

The nightly practices  _ have  _ improved their abilities—that much is obvious—but Andrew’s not quite convinced that that’s the only reason, or even the main reason they’re all so in sync right now.

Kevin made the nightly practices about Neil, and the rest of the Foxes rallied around him. It was the only way he could’ve convinced the rest of the team to buy into the arduous, boring hours of doing the same exercise over and over, but Andrew hadn’t thought that the man had it in him to make it about something other than Exy.

Not only that, but the upperclassmen have been acting strangely around Joshua. For the last few months they’ve been snubbing him, treating him as though he was thin air, but this whole week they’ve been...friendly. Patting him on the back when he pulls off a complicated stunt, shouting encouragements, almost like he really was a part of the team.

Andrew is planning to ask Renee what’s going on at their sparring session this weekend, but he thinks he already knows. Joshua’s little show in the locker room on Katelyn’s behalf has swayed them into thinking that he’s not that bad.

He’d call them fools, tell them that they were being sucked in by Joshua’s plan, except…

Except Joshua gives them a quick, fragile half-smile whenever they touch him. He gravitates to them now, like a moth being attracted to the light, and Andrew’s been around enough liars to know that this is no act.

Something has changed with the team. Not just between one or two people, but the  _ whole team. _

Even him and Aaron…

The sessions with Bee haven’t been all that productive, sure, but they’re at least tolerable.

Andrew pulls himself from his thoughts and looks up when he sees the ball making its way toward his side of the court. He picks up his racquet and readies himself to block the shot—

But Aaron gets there first.

His twin does some quick step that allows him to deftly scoop the ball from the air, before lunging forward and sending it to Dan. She easily catches it, then runs down the court to the other side. A couple of seconds later, gameplay stops when a Catamount slams into her and gets yellow-carded.

Andrew relaxes his grip on his racquet, straightening out of his crouched defensive stance. Aaron is watching him from behind the cage of his helmet, expression unreadable.

When Aaron reaches out with his racquet, Andrew’s is already rising to meet his. The clash of their sticks reverberates down his arm, shaking him to the very core. Aaron smirks, Andrew does not, and then they go back to their positions as though nothing had happened.

A few feet away, Nicky splutters, “Aaron, did—”

Andrew shushes him and Nicky’s mouth shuts with a snap.

The final score of the game is decisive. The Catamounts go home in defeat.

The Foxes step further into glory.

* * *

**Kevin**

Several weeks after that first practice, three days after the Catamounts game, Kevin pauses in the middle of knocking over a cone to look out over the rest of the Foxes.

Andrew is situated in the goal, knocking away balls that Dan and Allison are shooting his way. Nicky and Aaron are taking a break from footwork drills, the former pouring water over his head while the latter watches with subtle amusement. Matt is across the court, cones in a circle around him; as Kevin watches, the taller man turns in a quick, tight circle, attempting to hit each target as he goes.

He only misses three, but dissatisfaction twists his face, and he immediately sets down his gear and goes to set up the cones again.

Kevin clenches his fingers around his racquet, and his left hand is burning a hole in its glove. Watching the rest of the Foxes putting their all into practice, watching them improve over the past couple of weeks…

Kevin lets out a low, trembling sigh. Then he turns back toward the cones and switches his grip so it’s left-handed.

He picks up a ball in the net, his heartbeat buzzing through his body, and starts shooting. The sharp sound that each shot makes as they either hit the cones or miss feels like a drumbeat in his soul, the signal of something approaching.

His left hand isn’t that accurate, not after so long. He misses as many as he hits, but he doesn’t care, because when he flexes his hand after he finishes there is only a quiet soreness.

Kevin looks up, and meets Andrew’s gaze across the court. The other Foxes haven’t noticed, but the goalie’s hazel eyes are burning as they look at him.

After what feels like an eternity, Kevin raises his left hand into the air and folds it into a fist. Andrew nods in response, and then they go back to what they were doing.

Kevin is beaming underneath his face mask for the next fifteen minutes. For the first time he thinks,  _ We might actually do this. _

* * *

**Nathaniel**

Nathaniel hurries after Tetsuji as fast as his exhausted legs can carry him. Practice ended two hours ago, and yesterday, after the news of Kengo’s hospitalization, Riko had beaten them so bad that his back  _ still  _ hurts from where the belt—

He shakes himself, chewing on the inside of his lip until he tastes blood. The coppery tang grounds him, makes him feel just a little bit more present.

It would help, maybe, if Tetsuji would tell him where they were going. He feels exposed without Jean by his side, or like he’s missing a limb, and even Riko is nowhere to be seen. This is the first time he’s been alone with the man in...a long time. He doesn’t know when.

Tetsuji stops in front of a room, then takes out a key and unlocks it with a quick flick of the wrist. Nathaniel walks into an almost empty room, the only furniture a sturdy wooden table and a tall metal chair.

“Sit,” Tetsuji orders.

Nathaniel hesitates for a mere second, staring in trepidation at the chair. One second is apparently too much for Tetsuji however, because he whips around and hits him over the face with his cane.

Nathaniel’s vision goes white. He lets out a choked noise and drops, cradling his cheek under his shaking hands.

When he comes to, Tetusji has snapped one end of a handcuff around his wrist.

“No,” Nathaniel groans, but he’s too weak to fight back.

“Get up,” Tetsuji snaps, wrenching him to his feet by his cuffed wrist. The skin feels like it’s about to tear. “There is someone waiting for you.”

_ Someone waiting for you,  _ Nathaniel thinks, and his mind jumps to Riko’s words from the other day.  _ Your daddy’s out, you know? You should thank us. He had all sorts of things planned for you. _

No. No, they wouldn’t bring the Butcher of Baltimore here, to Edgar Allan—

Tetsuji forces him into the chair, and cuffs the other end of the handcuffs to one of the legs. Nathaniel tugs at it uselessly, movements wild and desperate. Regardless of who it is, he doesn’t want to be this vulnerable.

He freezes when he feels the end of the cane press warningly against the base of his throat.

“He has promised not to damage my property too badly,” Tetsuji sneers, and presses down on the cane until Nathaniel chokes and scrabbles uselessly with one hand. “Regardless of what happens in the next thirty minutes, you will be expected to come to practice tomorrow.”

_ Superficial injuries only,  _ Nathaniel’s mind translates without his permission. There’s lots of ways superficial injuries can cause pain. Lola had shown him all the ways to take a man apart without breaking his body. Broken in spirit, yes, but not completely useless.

Tetsuji gives him one last contemptuous look, then turns and walks out of the room without another word. Nathaniel leans forward in the chair, tugging hard at the restraint. For the first time ever, he’d rather be with Tetsuji than alone in this room, about to face god knows who.

“Well, well, well,” a familiar voice drifts in from the doorway, and Nathaniel snaps to attention. “Tetsuji left us a present. How nice of him.”

_ No. No, no nonononono… _

Lola steps through the door, sashays with the confidence of a woman who knows exactly how to use the knives strapped to her hips and likes the feel of them in her hands. Romero, her brother, is close on her heels, no less sadistic than his sister, then DiMaccio and then—

Bright blue eyes. Auburn hair styled close against his head in gelled waves, and a face thinner than he remembers. Dirty grey jeans and thick work boots, and a black zip-up hoodie over a black shirt.

_ No need to wear fancy clothes, if you’re going to get your hands dirty, _ a voice says in the back of his head.

“Junior,” his father says, giving the room a cool, unimpressed glare. Then his gaze snaps to Nathaniel, who freezes in pure, mortal terror. “I’ll forgive you for sitting, considering the circumstances. You’ve caused us quite a bit of trouble.”

He is trapped alone in a room with Lola, Romero, and his father. He is cuffed to a chair, alone, with his  _ father. _

His only consolation is that Tetsuji said not to damage him too badly. He’ll come out of this with his life, at least. He wraps his hand around the edge of his chair seat and clings to that as if the cool metal might save him or snap him out of this nightmare.

DiMaccio takes up position against the wall while Nathan lets out a sigh, almost commiserating, and stops in front of the table. Nathaniel watches him with wide eyes. He’s not the only threat in the room—his skin crawls as Lola and Romero circle around behind him—but Nathan is the most dangerous. “Pity we’re not allowed to exact a real payment from you. The Lord said we were to abide by Tetsuji’s restrictions.”

Nathaniel startles when Lola tuts, disappointed, from behind. Romero laughs meanly, and then Nathan is brushing his fingers oh-so-gently against the black four on Nathaniel’s cheek. He’s quivering with the effort it takes not to pull away, to thrash against the handcuff and try to escape.

“When’s he supposed to play next?” Romero’s voice rasps like a smoker, and Nathaniel gets a lungful of the smell when the other man puts a hand on his shoulder and leans in. It’s cigar smoke, richer and more potent than cigarette smoke, and it makes him want to gag.

“Tomorrow,” Lola purrs.

“A real pity,” Nathan repeats, leaning back and drumming his fingers against the table. Then he shakes his head. “She’s dead, then? My second greatest disappointment.”

Nathaniel can’t bring himself to speak. He nods, manages to breathe, “Seattle.”

Whatever it takes to survive just a minute, just a second longer. Whatever it takes to crawl one step further. That’s who Nathaniel is.

Nathan’s eyes light up. “Oh, right. I remember.”

The breath escapes him, low and slow, when Romero finally removes his hand.

Then Lola says, all saccharine sweetness, “I’m not really sure she’s dead.”

“Hm?” Nathan asks. Nathaniel’s heart sinks into his stomach.

“I mean,” Lola says, “he’s probably lying. He and the bitch were good at that.”

Nathan drums his fingers on the table again, rhythmic and relentless. _ 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4. _ “I suppose you have a point.”

“Should we make sure?” Romero asks, voice straining with eagerness.

Nathan’s hand slides from the table to rest casually against his side. Nathaniel’s heart is too loud in his ears. “How much time do we have left, Lola?”

“Twenty-five minutes,” She says.

Nathan tilts his head to one side, then takes a step back, then another, until he’s leaning casually against the wall next to DiMaccio.

“Very well, then.” Nathan makes a silent order with a jerk of his chin. “Go ahead.”

Lola descends. She’s quick, efficient with a knife. It’s always what she’s always been good at.

* * *

Tetsuji collects him after everything is finished. He raises his eyebrows at the snaking lines cut into the skin of Nathaniel’s arms interspersed with burn marks, at the blood streaking down his face.

“I thought I told you not to damage Moriyama property too badly,” he says neutrally.

Lola shrugs casually, spinning her knife between her fingers. Nathaniel cringes away, and Nathan reaches over and squeezes his forearm, right over one of the burns.

Nathaniel muffles a whimper, breathing harshly through his nose.

“He can still play,” Nathan says. “Can’t you, Junior?”

Nathaniel doesn’t respond, so Nathan squeezes harder and an involuntary scream spills from his lips. “Yes!” he chokes out, and almost starts weeping with relief when Nathan finally lets go.

Tetsuji looks very much like he would like to protest that, but then Lola flicks her butterfly knife again, and he just grits his teeth and looks away. It’s the first time that Nathaniel has seen Tetsuji bite his tongue, and the surprise is almost enough to overcome the haze of pain.

Almost.

“Make me proud, Junior,” Nathan says, patting Nathaniel’s cheek. Blood oozes from the cut just below the four and drips onto his shirt. The  _ or else  _ is implied.

Tetsuji waits until Nathan and the others have left before undoing the cuff. Nathaniel feels like his wrist has been half scraped off from where he was pulling against it, trying to break free while Lola and Nathan carved into his body.

“Get up,” Tetsuji says, taking a step back.

_ He’s trying to see whether or not I can, _ Nathaniel realizes dimly. He’s not so sure himself. There’s nothing wrong with his legs, but the pain in his arms and on his face makes him want to curl up and never move again.

“I said, get up,” Tetsuji repeats, louder this time.

Nathaniel lists to one side, flexes his fingers slowly to try and make sure he still has circulation. Then he presses his forearm into the table and pushes up, letting out a quiet whine when his burns ache and throb. He manages to stand though, even though the world shakes and trembles.

Tetsuji takes him back to the dorms. Nathaniel must look as bad as he feels, because his pace is much more accommodating than usual. Nathaniel shuffles forward, leaning against the wall for support. The world keeps coming in and out of focus. It’s everything he can do not to pass out.

They stop outside of Jean and Nathaniel’s room, and Tetsuji gives Nathaniel a scrutinizing once-over.

“Take tomorrow off,” he says at length. “This is the only exception I’ll allow.”

Nathaniel sways for a couple of seconds before remembering that he’s expected to respond. He wets his lips and whispers, “Okay.”

Tetsuji vanishes between one second and the next. Nathaniel blearily stares at the spot where he stood, wondering when he vanished, if he was ever there at all. Then he takes a deep breath and fumbles at the doorknob. It takes him a couple of tries, considering the spidering wounds crawling through his fingers, but he manages.

“Where have you been?” Jean demands without looking up from his computer screen. He’s in his soft flannel pajamas, sprawled across his bed like a lazy cat. Nathaniel blinks at the scene. It’s so mundane, so normal, that he’s not even sure how he’s supposed to respond.

Jean frowns and looks up when the silence persists, and his jaw drops. He shoves the laptop aside, spills from the bed and scrambles to his feet. For a second he just stares at him, horror growing with each passing second, but then he crowds into Nathaniel’s space so he can frame the air around his face with his hands and get a better look at the injuries.

He doesn’t touch him, though. Nathaniel’s eyes flutter shut with relief at being in the presence of someone he knows is not going to hurt him.

_ “Nathaniel, _ ” he whispers,  _ “What the hell happened to you?” _

_ “The master gave my father thirty minutes to do whatever he felt like,”  _ Nathaniel whispers back, still with his eyes shut. The shaking has come back, but worse this time, and he wraps his arms around himself to try and ward off the cold.

Jean makes a sound that lives halfway between a groan and a sob.  _ “Can I touch your back?” _

Nathaniel nods, slumps forward when he feels the gentle touch, feather-light, come to rest between his shoulder blades. The past hour feels like a bad dream. If he closes his eyes, he can pretend that this is just another day at the Nest, another day with Riko.

Jean guides him to the bed, and Nathaniel drops onto the covers and curls his fingers into the blanket. He keeps seeing bright blue eyes, keeps hearing Lola’s mocking voice and Romero’s giggling. He’s tired.  _ He’s so tired. _

_ “Where are you injured?”  _ Jean asks, all the horror tucked behind a perfunctory, businesslike mask. This is what they do for each other: clean up all the bloody, broken pieces.

Nathaniel gestures in the general vicinity of his face and arms. _ “Just what you see.” _

Jean nods and goes to fetch the med kit. He sits across from Nathaniel and digs through the box, before emerging with burn cream, antiseptic, and bandages. Then he hesitates, like he’s not sure where to start.

_ “Just…”  _ Nathaniel shudders, and Jean’s face tightens minutely.  _ “Just get it over with.” _

Jean nods and, after a moment of deliberation, reaches for Nathaniel’s face. He closes his eyes and breathes, barely noticing when Jean gently disentangles his hand from the blankets and loops their fingers together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in nathaniel's scene, nathan comes to the nest with Lola and Romero. they torture neil with knives.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> edit: im an idiot lol. the gorgeous art in this chapter belongs to tigerjawed. their twitter/tumblr is at the bottom.

**Andrew**

It’s almost night time when Andrew, Kevin, Aaron and Nicky pull up to KFC’s drive through. Andrew has thoroughly tuned out of the conversation by this point, as Kevin has been explaining the chances of Penn State winning against the Trojans in Friday’s game, which is apparently slim. Quite frankly, Andrew does not give a shit about the outcome. He half wants the Trojans to lose just to see the look on Kevin’s face.

“But Kevin,” Nicky says, sounding innocently puzzled. “Didn’t Penn state defeat the Trojans before the official conference matches started last year?”

Andrew bites down on a smirk. Nicky has his moments.

“Well—” Andrew watches as Kevin’s face screws up into the picture of annoyance. _“Yes,_ but their captain was—”

“I want waffle fries,” Aaron interrupts, grabbing onto Andrew’s headrest and pulling himself forward. “And extra packets of their special sauce.”

“Ooo,” Nicky intones, immediately losing interest in Kevin’s rant in favor of fried food. “Me too. Are their milkshakes good?”

“I’m not sure that they have milkshakes,” Aaron responds, frowning thoughtfully. Beside Andrew, Kevin’s mouth snaps shut, and he scowls darkly at all of them.

“What do you think, Kevin?” Andrew asks.

Kevin stubbornly refuses to say anything, although if looks could kill then Andrew would be a black spot of soot on the bottom of his car.

“So you don’t want anything?” Andrew asks, quirking an eyebrow.

“Shut up,” Kevin growls, then reluctantly adds, “Grilled chicken sandwich. No mayo.”

Andrew nods, then rolls down the window and gives their order to the employee. He pulls forward until they’re a couple of feet from the car ahead of them, and then puts the car in park.

Aaron and Nicky have lost interest in antagonizing Kevin, and are now deeply focused on their phones. Luckily Kevin doesn’t take this as an invitation to talk to Andrew, and is instead staring broodily out of the car window, hand resting just below the _2_ tattooed on his face.

Andrew checks the time on his own phone, then frowns when he notices that there’s a new notification. He glances at Kevin before flipping his phone open so he can see the message. His eyebrows fly up to his forehead when he sees who the sender is.

**Neil:** Can we call?   
  


_Neil._

Casually so as not to attract the attention of the others in the car, Andrew types slowly and carefully without looking at the screen.

**Andrew:** Twenty minutes   
  


He puts his phone away and curls his fingers over the steering wheel, foot tapping impatiently against the foot rest.

Fifteen minutes later, Andrew is shutting the door of the roof behind him, sighing at finally being alone. His impatience had unfortunately been a bit more obvious than he would have liked. Nicky and Aaron had been too busy digging into their food to pay him any attention, but Kevin had sent him an odd look as he walked out the door.

Andrew shakes a cigarette from the pack, breathing deep and trying to will away how unsettled he feels. He didn’t mean to let them see. More than that, he didn’t mean to be so eager to talk to Neil Josten.

He’s been avoiding thinking about their last call, besides some research into Nathan Wesninski. He doesn’t know _what_ to think, quite frankly, besides that Neil Josten is far, far more dangerous than he’d originally thought.

Being invested is stupid. Neil Josten not only lied to him about being the son of a mob boss, but he is currently deep in the heart of Raven territory, signed away to some of the most dangerous people in the entire country.

He is playing with fire. He _knows_ better than this. But it’s like he can’t help but stick his hand into the flame. He knows that he’s going to call, knows that he won’t be able to stop. He quit one drug only to pick up another. Its name is Neil Josten, and it has all _sorts_ of warnings on the label that he is duly ignoring.

**Andrew:** ready   
  


He hits call without waiting for a response, but Neil picks up a couple of seconds later.

“Andrew.”

“Neil,” Andrew says, then adds compulsively, “93 percent.”

Neil is quiet for a second. Then he says, voice full of incredulity, “What does that even _mean?”_

“I hate you,” Andrew explains calmly. “93 percent of the time the sound of your voice makes me want to commit murder.”

“Oh,” Neil says, sounding no less befuddled than before. “Should I be sleeping with one eye open?”

“It won’t save you,” Andrew responds.

“Promises,” Neil says, and the smile curling at the corners of his voice makes something in Andrew twist. “Is there a reason why you want to kill me three percent more than you did the last time?”

“I figured I should kill you before your father finds you. I looked him up.” Andrew puts the cigarette between his lips and watches the smoke drift into the sky. There are graphic images of the Butcher’s victims burned in his brain, their skin carved up with expert precision. “You’re even stupider than I thought for not running.”

Andrew expects Neil to come back with a snarky comment. He expects Neil to explain his reasoning, to make his excuses that revolve around Exy. He does not expect the long silence, cut only by a quiet intake of breath from the other end of the phone.

Andrew’s stomach clenches. “...Neil?”

“What?” Neil’s voice is higher than normal, breathy, and something is _wrong._ “I’m fine.”

“Bullshit.”

“It doesn’t matter. It won’t—”

“It has something to do with your father,” Andrew interjects ruthlessly, ignoring the way that Neil goes dead quiet. “Was it his men? He’s still in jail, so—”

“He’s not,” Neil whispers.

Andrew pauses. Blinks. The cigarette smoke continues to drift upward. “What?”

“He’s not in jail,” Neil continues, sounding as though every word is being scraped out of him, “As of yesterday night, he was in Edgar Allan.”

Andrew freezes and understands instantly, viscerally, that Nathan went to Edgar Allan to visit Neil. But—no, Tetsuji wouldn’t have let Nathan hurt Neil. That would affect Neil’s Exy performance, which is not profitable.

 _There are ways to hurt people without seriously injuring them,_ a tiny voice that sounds like Renee whispers.

“He hurt you,” Andrew says with terrible, numb certainty.

“It’s nothing,” Neil says. He doesn’t sound like he means it. “I’m fine.”

 _“Don’t,”_ Andrew growls, jerking away from the edge of the roof and tossing the cigarette butt down onto the concrete. It’s already burned down to the orange filter, anyway. “Don’t _lie_ to me. You said you would stop lying.”

Neil is quiet for a second. Then he says, “I know.”

“Tell me,” Andrew demands, and Neil does.

Deliberately, wearily, Neil tells him about being led into a room, about being knocked over by Tetsuji. He talks about being cuffed to a chair, about Nathan and his men walking into the room, knives on their hips and in their smiles. He’s vague on the details, but Andrew can connect the dots.

_They tortured him._

Neil finishes talking, and for several seconds Andrew doesn’t say anything. He feels far away from himself, from the boil of emotion that threatens to overcome his control. All he can smell is the thick, coppery scent of blood; all he can hear is quiet pleading. He sits down, putting his back to one wall, clenching his fist to try and stop the trembling.

Unconscious of the war Andrew is fighting with himself, Neil lets out a quiet laugh and adds, “At least they let me take today off of practice.”

 _“Stop,”_ Andrew says, but it’s strangled and sounds barely human.

“Andrew?” Neil asks, alarmed. “Andrew, are you okay?”

“Shut up,” Andrew responds. “Just—shut up.”

For once, Neil does as he’s told, and Andrew forces himself to breathe as he counts down from fifty. By the time he reaches one he’s feeling a bit more in control, and he experimentally unclenches his fist, flexing the circulation back into his fingers.

Low and vicious, Andrew says, “You should have stayed.”

Neil once again proves how little self preservation he has by saying, “That’s the angriest I’ve ever heard you.”

“You bring out the worst in me,” Andrew tells him honestly. “94 percent.”

“Flattering,” Neil says drily, though now that Andrew’s listening he can hear the edge of exhaustion in his voice. “I never asked, but what’s the other six percent for?”

Andrew wordlessly shakes another cigarette from the pack and lights it. There’s no point in telling him the truth. Neil doesn’t swing, and Andrew is self-destructive, but he’s not stupid.

Neil must hear the sound of the lighter, because he asks, “Is that a cigarette?”

Andrew pauses in the middle of putting it to his mouth. “Yeah.”

“I miss them,” Neil admits with more honesty than Andrew had expected. “We’re not allowed to smoke in the Nest.”

Andrew finally tags a drag, then breathes out. “If you wanted to keep smoking, then you should have stayed.”

“I...yeah,” Neil whispers. He hesitates, before adding, “I just want to go back to the Foxes.”

Andrew doesn’t want to feel anything for this man. This is Neil’s fault, anyway; he chose to go to Riko despite knowing better. But still, that weak admission tears at something in his chest, makes him bite down on his cigarette. He wants to go over to Edgar Allan and tear Riko apart. He wants to beat that arrogant prick into the ground.

But more than that, he wants to bring Neil home.

“I know,” Andrew says placidly, like it means nothing.

“Tell me about the Foxes,” Neil says, apropo of nothing. Andrew wants to punch the desperation out of his voice. “Just...talk to me.”

Andrew is _not_ a person to be ordered around. He takes a deep drag from the cigarette, and lets the smoke spiral upward into the stars. 

Then he does as he’s told.

* * *

**Kevin**

Kevin looks up when their front door opens. It’s Andrew, and Kevin is secretly relieved. He’s been waiting for about twenty minutes now, and the tension is so thick it feels like it can be cut with a knife.

Outwardly, though, he scowls and glares. “Took you long enough.”

Andrew looks at him blankly. Kevin sees the second he finally notices the visitor sitting on the bean bag chair, because the blankness is swiftly replaced with cool indifference.

Kevin hadn’t wanted to let Joshua into their room, especially without Andrew there, but the man had been very insistent. Nicky and Aaron are both sitting at their desks, and though they both appear to be invested enough in their respective activities, they glance suspiciously over at Joshua every couple of minutes.

To his credit, Joshua hasn’t commented on the blatant suspicion, or tried to make inane small talk. He’s been quiet ever since Kevin told him, ‘We’ll wait for Andrew’, observing the room with thoughtful, unreadable brown-gold eyes.

“What’s he doing here?” Andrew asks, and Kevin frowns at him. It’s not that the statement is out of character; there’s just something off with the way he says it. There’s an edge to his eyes, maybe, or… Kevin doesn’t know. He wishes that he’d told Joshua to come back tomorrow.

“I’m here to talk,” Joshua responds.

He opens his mouth to say something else, but Andrew is already speaking, approaching Joshua in a way that screams _danger._ “There is nothing to talk about, Raven. If you know what’s good for you—”

“Andrew,” Kevin interrupts sharply, now vaguely alarmed by Andrew’s sudden volatility, and gets to his feet. Normally he buries his emotions deep. What _happened_ in the short time he was gone? “He’s here to come clean.”

Andrew stops and stares at Kevin, expression frozen. Then he snorts, shakes his head, and steps away. “He’s not telling the truth.”

“I’m not asking for you to believe me,” Joshua interrupts quietly. Kevin and Andrew turn to look at him in sync, but he doesn’t cower or back down. Kevin knows that it’s probably a result of living around Riko, day in and day out. “All I’m asking is that you hear me out.”

“Why _should_ we?” Andrew snaps, turning the full force of his ire onto Joshua. “You’ve made your opinion of the Foxes clear. What could possibly cause you to change your mind, just like that?”

Joshua looks Andrew dead in the eye and says, “Riko is wrong.”

Kevin’s jaw loosens. There’s a buzzing in his ears. Even Andrew seems to understand the significance of that sentence, because he falls silent.

Joshua glances between them to make sure that he still has their attention, before continuing in a calm, matter-of-fact voice. Kevin has only ever seen him as a Raven, and this controlled demeanor and careful deliberateness is like finally getting a glimpse into who Joshua might have been if he hadn’t gone to Edgar Allan.

“Riko promised me a spot on the starting lineup if I sabotaged the Foxes and prevented them from making finals,” Joshua says, and then looks at them expectantly.

“Are you kidding me?” Nicky bursts out. Beside him, Aaron looks equally shocked.

But Kevin isn’t surprised. “We know,” he says shortly, indicating to Andrew and himself.

Joshua nods, as though he was expecting that response. Then he says, “It took me a while to see it, but Riko’s wrong. It was wrong of him to take Nathan— _Neil_ from you guys. He shouldn’t be allowed to do whatever he wants just because he’s the best in the division, or because he _thinks_ that he’s the best in the division.

“I didn’t realize...” Joshua turns his gaze to the floor. “I didn’t realize that teams could be a family and still play well. Not until I came to PSU.”

Kevin looks at Andrew again, because if he didn’t hear wrong, Joshua just said ‘because he thinks that he’s the best in the division’, as though Joshua thought differently. The other man’s gaze is fixed on Joshua, though.

“How do we know that you’re not just saying this?” he asks.

And that really is the heart of it, isn’t it? Kevin wants to rage, he wants to _scream,_ because was it really that easy? If he had left months before Riko had shattered his hand, if he had just taken a moment to sit down and think about it—

Joshua meets Kevin’s incredulous gaze and says, with no room for interpretation, “I’m willing to break my contract with Edgar Allan and sign a new one with the Foxes for the rest of my college career.”

Kevin can’t quite remember how to breathe. The silence that fills the room is deafening.

Is it really so easy?

“If you’ll have me, of course,” Joshua adds.

“Wait a second,” Nicky whispers, looking back and forth between Andrew, then Kevin, then Joshua, and back to Andrew. “You’re—he’s joking, right? You’re joking?”

Joshua’s eyes slide contemptuously to Nicky, and then he looks back at Andrew. Kevin is suddenly aware of that fact that Joshua knows that if he truly wants to become a part of the team, Andrew is the one he’ll have to convince.

Kevin’s not so sure what he would say if Joshua asked him. At the moment, he’s not sure that he can say anything.

“I think you should say yes,” Aaron suddenly interjects, lifting his chin as all attention hones in on him. After a furtive glance at Andrew, he adds, “Katelyn is a good judge of character.”

“Just like that?” Kevin rasps, his voice sounding a million miles away from its normal tone. He can’t stop staring at Joshua, wondering at this strange creature that has wandered into Palmetto State University.

Joshua shrugs one shoulder almost apologetically, his gaze once more landing on the floor. “The Nest stops making sense after you leave.”

Kevin feels as though he’s just been kicked in the teeth, because that exact thought has crossed his mind. For weeks upon weeks after leaving the Nest, he’d tried to understand what made Riko so compelling, what made the Nest so successful despite their utter lack of humanity. The only thought he’d been able to have was that the Nest, the sense of superiority, the power hierarchy, all of it—only made sense until you left.

Once you leave the Nest, the fragile tower of lies and superiority Riko builds crumbles, leaving you with nothing but fragments of regret and self-loathing.

He staggers backward and finds his desk chair, before sitting down and burying his face into his hands. The scars on his left hand tingle like they’re full of electricity.

Then he laughs, dry and lacking humor. “He can stay,” he says, not raising his face. “Let him stay.”

He knows that they’re all staring at him, that he’s suddenly become a spectacle, but it’s taking everything he has not to fall apart.

“I hope you know what will happen if you betray us,” Andrew says finally, filling the awkward silence.

“Torture and bloodshed,” Joshua says dismissively, and Kevin hears him get to his feet. “I got the memo.”

“Good,” Andrew responds. “Now get out.”

Thankfully, Joshua does so without protest. Kevin hears Nicky and Aaron shifting around, but Andrew obviously decides that Kevin deserves to have his breakdown in private, because they both leave a second later. Kevin keeps his head in his hands, now more because he doesn’t want to look Andrew in the eye than because he’s upset.

Finally, he looks up. Andrew is smoking out of the open window, not paying Kevin any attention in the slightest. Kevin wrinkles his nose, then sniffs loudly and lowers his hands. Andrew glances at him, before turning back to the window.

“Another Raven, huh?” Andrew asks.

“He’s telling the truth,” Kevin responds.

Andrew snorts, then gets to his feet and stubs the cigarette out on the windowsill. “It’s on your head if this backfires.”

“I understand,” Kevin says. And he _does_ understand, but he doesn’t think that it will backfire. It’s a culmination of a month and a half of observation, of biting conversations, of watching Joshua slowly change his mind regarding the Ravens.

And it only took a month and a half. That’s the worst of it, Kevin thinks: Joshua spends less than two months on a dysfunctional, inferior team, and somehow breaks the mindset that’s been driven into him for three years. It took Riko shattering Kevin’s hand and his future for him to finally get a clue.

Kevin shakes his head, pushes his hair away from his face, and gets to his feet. Andrew watches him as he moves, as though making sure he’s functional and not about to make a beeline for the alcohol.

He’s not. He just feels...a little tired.

* * *

**Nathaniel**

Nathaniel shifts on the bench, tightening and loosening his grip on his stick. The cloying scent of sweat sits heavy on his tongue, and he can feel the thrum of movement from the court throughout his whole body. He can barely hear the roar of the crowd through the buzzing in his ears, even though he knows that it must be deafening.

Jean leans over and asks, _“Are you nervous?”_

 _“No,”_ Nathaniel says honestly, _“I just want to play.”_

Jean snorts and shakes his head. When Nathaniel shoots him a questioning look, he explains, _“You’re just like Kevin. He could never wait to get onto the court.”_

It’s weird to think about Kevin being here among the Ravens, face flushed with excitement, the tattooed 2 proudly displayed on his face. Nathaniel tries to imagine being a Raven with Kevin, but it’s so jarring that he shakes his head to dispel the image. Kevin belongs in orange with the rest of the Foxes. He thinks he might do too, but only as Neil. Nathaniel would live and die in black and red.

It’s halfway through the first half, and Jean’s already been on and off the court several times. His helmet is discarded at his side, and his sweaty bangs are pushed out of his face. He’s done well so far, but Nathaniel knows that he’s getting nervous for the next time he’ll have to play.

Nathaniel will be playing in this game. And next time Jean goes on, he’ll be on as well.

Riko had told him this suddenly after practice, Tetsuji standing stonily at one shoulder.

 _It’s time you start showing the fruits of your training,_ Tetsuji had said.

Nathaniel doesn’t care that he’ll be playing this game under the aegis of the Raven name. He doesn’t even care how nervous his excitement makes Jean—he’s so eager to get onto the court he’s almost vibrating with energy. He’s going to play Exy with other people again.

 _“Don’t steal the spotlight from Riko, understand?”_ Jean whispers to him, grabbing Nathaniel’s jersey and twisting the material between his fingers. _“If you make him angry it’ll be_ both _our heads.”_

 _“I understand,”_ Nathaniel says impatiently, shaking off his grip.

“Josten! Moreau!” Tetsuji calls, gesturing without looking at them. Two exhausted Ravens stagger into the box.

Nathaniel rises to his feet, Jean a step behind him. He shoves his mouthguard in, buckles his helmet, and then steps out onto the court.

He’s immediately assaulted by a cacophony of light and sound, the roar of the crowd and the glare of the overhead lights almost unbearable. He shields his face and staggers, but Jean is at his back, pushing him forward. He adjusts after a couple of seconds, and then is able to walk the rest of the way by himself.

The other Ravens don’t even look at him as he passes by, their identities made blurry and indistinct by the black cages around their faces. The only way to distinguish one from the other is by the name and number on their jersey.

 _That’s what I must look like to them,_ Nathaniel realizes dimly, before settling into a ready stance.

(Miles away, sitting in the foyer of The Foxhole Court in front of the television Wymack pulls out for studying other teams, Nicky drops the bag of chips he was holding, points at the screen, and shrieks, _“Guys!_ Guys! It’s Neil!”

The rest of the Foxes gather around the screen, drinking in his silhouette. It’s the first time they’ve seen him since the Texas game.)

The rest of the half is a complete and utter blur. Nathaniel may not enjoy being a backliner, but he loves Exy, so he’ll play the position to the best of his ability. The person he’s marking initially makes a mocking comment regarding his stature, but they quickly lose their bravado when Nathaniel proves just how fast he is.

He gets glimpses of Jean, face completely focused, his tall frame taut and heaving for air. He also sees Riko, a slip of dark fury and unstoppable determination. It’s times like these that Nathaniel remembers just why everything thinks that Riko is number one—it’s because he’s very, very good.

 _Kevin is better, though,_ Nathaniel thinks defiantly, and sends a ball careening down the court.

Nathaniel’s not sure how long they keep him on, but it feels like barely any time at all between when they put him on and when they call him back off again. Jean reaches out and pulls Nathaniel’s helmet into his shoulder as they leave the court together, shaking him wordlessly. Nathaniel grins and wraps his free arm around Jean’s waist, high on the addictive taste of the game.

Tetsuji puts him out once more during the first half, and then twice during the second half. Nathaniel knows that it’s because they’re winning by a comfortable margin already.

Then, during the third time Nathaniel is put on the court, disaster strikes. Or more accurately: Nathaniel fucks up.

He’s so caught up in the game, in the feeling of sweat on his skin and the burn of exhaustion in his bones, that for one crucial second he forgets where he is. For one crucial second he is Neil Josten of PSU, a striker who can get from one end of the court to another in moments.

Neil gets the ball, and a path opens up before him between the enemy strikers, right to the goal. He feels the muscles in his thighs tense, speed building throughout his whole body—

And then he’s gone, weaving through the enemy strikers, then the backliners, the goal growing ever closer, ever _closer—_

“Josten!” a voice shouts, and Nathaniel shakes back into reality. To his horror, he’s just past the center line in the middle of the court, and the rest of the Ravens are staring at him. The person who shouted was Riko, and anyone else might mistake his shout for a request to pass the ball, but Nathaniel knows better.

There is sheer, unadulterated fury in those eyes.

Nathaniel throws the ball at Riko as though it burned him, not even watching to make sure that the other man catches it. He ducks his head and darts back to his position, to Jean, his mouth dry with anxiety. He’s called off the court thirty seconds later, and he almost immediately feels Jean’s hand digging into his elbow.

 _“That was very stupid,”_ Jean says, voice laced with fear.

 _“I’m sorry,”_ Nathaniel murmurs, and knows that it isn’t enough.

* * *

**Andrew**

At Andrew’s side, Kevin is practically tying himself into knots.

“Riko will _not_ let that go,” Kevin says, tearing a tissue into shreds. Andrew watches the little white pieces with detachment. “No _way._ What was he thinking?”

“He wasn’t,” Andrew responds matter-of-factly. Kevin should know this. He played Exy with the junkie for a full semester, after all.

“What do you think he’ll do to him?” Nicky asks naïvely.

Andrew has to remind himself that Nicky and Aaron don’t know the full extent of Riko’s depravity. Asking questions like _What do you think he’ll do to him_ is only going to make him feel worse.

“Doesn’t matter,” Andrew says before Kevin can say anything. He stands to turn the television off, but Kevin’s outstretched hand stops him.

“Wait,” he says. “This is Neil’s first game back. He might…”

“Might what?” Aaron asks, but then the screen switches to the post-game interviews, and they all go quiet.

Neil and Riko are standing next to each other. Riko’s hair has been combed back into some semblance of order, but Neil hasn’t bothered with his, and his auburn curls are slicked with sweat. There are thick bandaids on his cheeks, probably hiding the aftermath of his session with Nathaniel, and he’s staring at the camera with his disarmingly sharp, bright blue eyes. For a second Andrew has the irrational sensation of being stared down.

 _You’re more of a liar than I thought you were,_ Andrew thinks, drinking in Neil’s new appearance. Neil was intense before, when Andrew’s world was layered with a drugged kaleidoscope of sensation. Glimpsing Neil as he is now, blue eyes sharp as shards of glass, curly auburn hair like tongues of flame, defiance barely contained behind a mask of indifference, Andrew feels as though he’s just been electrified. _Is that what you really look like?_

 _“We’re here with Neil Josten and Riko Moriyama. Wonderful job you two!”_ a reporter says.

Riko laughs charmingly, his eyes crinkling at the corners. _“Would you expect anything else from the Ravens?”_

Neil rolls his eyes, and Kevin lets out a choked sound.

“What were they thinking?” Nicky whispers, and Andrew can’t help but agree. “Also, what the hell did they do to his face?”

Riko makes another few superficial comments regarding the state of the team, while Neil shifts from one foot to another, looking bored. If Riko’s smart, he’ll do all the talking for Neil.

Andrew knows that Riko is very, very stupid.

 _“So Neil,”_ one of the reporters says, and Riko’s smile goes rigid. Neil looks up, blinking at being addressed. _“Today is your very first game with the Ravens! It must have been exciting for you!”_

 _“Not really,”_ Neil says, shrugging dismissively. Riko twitches. _“I played games with the Foxes, and those were far more interesting.”_

“No,” Kevin breathes. Nicky groans. Andrew has the sudden, visceral desire to put his hand through the TV and try to strangle the idiot.

 _“I can imagine!”_ the reporter continues obliviously. _“The Ravens are such a good team, this game was probably a breeze compared with Palmetto.”_

“Don’t say anything,” Kevin pleads, his eyes fixed on Riko’s face. _“Please.”_

 _“No, the Foxes are the better team,”_ Neil corrects. If Andrew knows anything about Riko at all, the self-proclaimed king is about to lose it. He’s remarkably composed for the moment, though. _“The Ravens just aren’t that interesting to play with.”_

 _“Thank you for your questions,”_ Riko interrupts, grabbing onto Neil’s arm. Andrew just barely catches the pained wince that crosses Neil’s face, and he scowls. _“As you can see we are both very tired. The Ravens will continue to be the best team in the division. Have a good day.”_

And then he drags Neil offscreen.

There’s a long, stunned silence. Kevin is holding his head in his hands, Nicky is gaping at the screen, Aaron is shaking his head, and Andrew doesn’t feel anything at all. Honestly, Andrew thinks that interview went much, much better than it could have gone. Riko got off lightly.

“He’s dead,” Kevin groans finally.

“I doubt it,” Nicky disagrees immediately. “They lack the tenacity to kill someone like him.”

Nicky may be joking, but Andrew’s not sure if that’s entirely off the mark.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **please read**
> 
> you may have noticed that the rating has been changed to mature. this is for a REASON. in this chapter there is non-consensual drug use, non-explicit torture, and discussion of the injuries as a result of that torture.
> 
> if you would like to skip this chapter entirely, i will include a chapter summary in the end notes. the worst of it is all before the second page break. take care of yourself y'all

**Nathaniel**

Nathaniel and Jean are sitting next to each other on the lower bunk doing homework on their computers when Jean lets out a quiet, horrified gasp.

“Jean?” Nathaniel asks.

Jean covers his mouth, face shockingly pale. He turns the computer screen to the side so Nathaniel can see.

_ Kengo Moriyama confirmed dead this evening at... _

“No,” Nathaniel whispers, and shoves the laptop away. He and Jean look at each other, and see the same fear reflected in each other’s eyes. They know what this means for them.

“We can handle whatever Riko will do to us,” Jean whispers back, but he doesn’t look like he believes it. Without his brain’s permission, Nathaniel reaches out and grabs the hem of Jean’s shirt. But to his shock, Jean curls their fingers together.

He’s never been the type to seek comfort. He must be terrified.

Nathaniel sympathizes. He still has nightmares about the last time Kengo ended up in the hospital.

“We’re fine,” Nathaniel breathes, lowering his head. “We’re fine.”

The door bursts open. They look up as one—

But two Ravens have already grabbed Jean’s arms and are pulling him out the door. Nathaniel moves to stop them, but then he’s knocked over by a punch to the face that makes his teeth rattle. When he finally gets his wits about him, Engle and another Raven have trapped him between them.

_ Well, at least we’ll be together, _ Nathaniel thinks.

Riko is waiting in his room. The four Ravens stop in front of him, force Jean and Nathaniel to stand at attention.

Riko gives them a blank once-over.

Then he nods his head to the side and says, “Cuff Josten to the chair. I want him to see everything.”

“No!” Nathaniel shouts. “No, no, not Jean, please, Jean—”

_ “I’ll be fine,”  _ Jean tells him, even as the two Ravens wrestle him to the ground.  _ “I’ll be fine, don’t worry, I’m okay—” _

Riko punches Jean solidly in the stomach. He lets out a wheeze and sinks the rest of the way to the floor. Nathaniel can’t stop himself from thrashing against the two trying to shove him into the chair, because  _ no, not Jean— _

Then Riko is there, but now he’s holding a bottle of something, maybe water, probably not. He grabs Nathaniel’s jaw and squeezes until it’s forced open, and then empties the contents into his mouth and seals it shut. Nathaniel thrashes in his grip, but the Ravens on either side have half a foot and fifty pounds on him at least, and he can’t move.

He swallows, gasps a few ragged, heaving breaths when Riko finally lets go. Jean is shouting now, squirming on the ground, trying desperately to see what’s going on.  _ “What did you do to him?” _

“What did I say about speaking in French?” Riko asks.

“No,” Nathaniel tries to say, but the world swirls around him, and the word just slurs against his numb tongue and drops into nothingness. He feels wrong. “No.”

“That’s right,” Riko says. “No French. You can let go now. He’ll behave.”

The vice grip disappears from his arms. Nathaniel tries to rise to his feet, tries to do anything to help Jean, but he can’t feel his fingertips or toes anymore, and his legs feel like jello. His head lolls to the side, and his eyes land on a mop of hair, two horrified dark eyes.

_ Jean,  _ his brain says, but the significance is lost on him.

He’s vaguely aware of someone cuffing his wrists behind him, but the sensations are muddled and ephemeral. The only thing that sticks is that it’s dark, dark, the sky muddy and dark, no sun in sight.

For a second, there is just the dark haze and the silence.

Then there is screaming.

Nathaniel feels something tickle on the edge of the horizon in his mind, an urgency that can’t break through the haze. He catches glimpses of dark blood, of flashing movements and visions of knives that sends a sharp spike of fear through his veins. He knows he’s missing something—

_ Nathaniel, Neil, Abram, Andrew, where are they? Jean? Where’s Jean? Andrew? Neil? Who is Neil, who is Abram? Who is— _

* * *

Nathaniel wakes up, and his shoulders are screaming.

He gasps at the pain, tries to shift his arms to alleviate some of the pressure, but something’s restricting his movements. He tugs a couple of times, frowning—

And then he remembers, and bolts to attention.

Riko is sitting against the wall, his perfectly manicured hands folded loosely over his knees. His black clothes are mottled, and parts of his hair are matted together. He looks wilder than Nathaniel has ever seen him. He looks—

Unhinged. Like his father’s death has shattered the tenuous grip he had on sanity.

There are no other Ravens in the room, except for the still, silent form on the floor.

“Jean,” Nathaniel says. He doesn’t look like he’s breathing.

“Glad you could join us,” Riko says coolly.

Nathaniel’s head snaps up, and for one second, he is pure Nathaniel Wesninski. He smiles at Riko, all teeth and no humor, and intones, “Riko Moriyama, there will be nowhere you can hide.”

Riko recoils, eyes widening, mouth parting. Nathaniel strains against the handcuffs, wishing he had the solid weight of a knife in his palm. The things he could do to this monster. The things he  _ wants  _ to do to this monster for touching Jean.

Then Riko is rolling his eyes and laughing, a forced sound that can’t quite disguise the fact that he was terrified just two seconds before. He rises to his feet and crosses the room to stand in front of Nathaniel. “Chained to a chair and bought by my family, you still think you have any power? The hubris.”

Nathaniel Wesninski wavers, and Neil Josten cringes and curls into himself. He wants to go home. He wants the Foxes.

There’s a clicking sound and then the cuffs that had fixed his hands in place drop to the ground. Riko slings the key ring around his finger and says, unconcerned by any danger Nathaniel may pose, “Take Jean back to the room. Treat him. We’re not finished here.”

Dread and despair gather in Nathaniel’s gut. He wants to scream, wants to protest that Jean can’t handle much more of this, he looks half dead as it is. Wants to lunge upward and wrap his hands around Riko’s throat. But he doesn’t, because Nathaniel is a survivor, and he will survive this, one way or another. Instead he forces himself to his feet (and  _ oh, _ the drugs are still playing havoc on his system) and wobbles over to Jean.

“Jean,” he whispers, collapsing by his side. He presses his ear to the man’s chest and listens, almost sick with relief when he hears a steady heartbeat. He retreats and shakes Jean’s shoulder, one of the only parts of him that doesn’t appear to be broken or leaking blood. “Jean, wake up.”

Jean lets out a quiet moan. Nathaniel nervously looks over his shoulder, but Riko is gone.

He makes a decision.

_ “Jean, we’re getting you out of here,” _ he says. He lifts Jean’s arm, wincing when he lets out a muffled whimper, but pushes onward.  _ “Jean, I’m calling Renee. We’re getting you out of here.” _

“Nathaniel?” Jean half-sobs.

Nathaniel bites down on his tears.  _ “Yes, Jean. I’m sorry, you’re too heavy for me to carry. Can you stand?” _

Jean lets out a sound that makes Nathaniel aware of his opinion on that request. But then he grits his jaw and, with Nathaniel’s help, forces himself to his knees.

_ “Here, put your arm over my shoulders,” _ Nathaniel says, tugging at his arm, the one that’s not still dripping blood. There’s not a part of him that doesn’t look uninjured. He must be in agony.

Jean quietly follows Nathaniel’s instruction, and after some tense maneuvering Jean is half draped over his shoulders. Nathaniel winces at the soreness in his arms, at the way his balance wavers from the residual effects of the drugs, but ignores it. Jean’s in more pain than him. Jean needs him.

_ “It hurts, _ ” Jean says, barely audible.

Nathaniel breathes in a shaky breath and squeezes his eyes shut.  _ Not now, don’t cry.  _ He wishes he’d gouged Riko’s eyes out when he had the chance.

_ “I know, _ ” Nathaniel says.  _ “I’ll get you some help, okay? I’ll get you out.” _

Jean says nothing to that. Nathaniel’s not even sure he heard.

Several agonizing minutes later, after a walk where the world teeters and rolls like an ocean and Jean lets out quiet, agonized gasps at every step, they’re finally back in the room. Nathaniel carefully lowers Jean to the bed, before hurrying to the door and locking it. It’s Riko’s law that they’re not allowed to lock their doors, but he doesn’t care. He’s not willing to risk Jean’s safety on someone walking in.

He removes Jean’s phone from its hiding place and opens it. Finds Renee’s number.

Calls.

“Hello?” comes a soft voice from the other end of the phone. “Jean?”

For a second, Nathaniel can’t speak. He grabs the bedpost and lowers himself to the mattress next to Jean, breathing hard through his nose. Renee. A Fox.  _ His family.  _ The world presses heavy onto his shoulders, and he bows from the weight of it.

Neil Josten softly says, “Hi, Renee.”

A soft sigh. Then she says, hesitant and gentle as she ever was,  _ “Neil?” _

Nathaniel jerks, his breath catching in his throat.  _ Neil.  _ He feels a wave of  _ something—old adrenaline, bright orange and white, the musky scent of sweat— _

Then Jean groans and curls onto his side, and Nathaniel snaps back into reality. He straightens up and hisses, “Renee, you need to come to Evermore and get Jean out of here. I don’t know how much longer he can hold out.”

There’s a moment of shocked silence.

“I didn’t know who else to call,” he adds, desperation bleeding into his voice.

That finally gets a reaction. Grim and all-to-knowing, Renee says, “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Nathaniel hangs up, and looks down at the phone in his hands, deliberating. Then he lets out a low, quiet sigh, and scrolls down to another contact.

Under different circumstances, Neil would have laughed and shaken his head at the fact that Jean has changed it to read,  _ ‘N’s Boyfriend’. _

Andrew picks up but doesn’t say anything first, as usual. He never does.

“I probably won’t be able to talk on the phone again,” Nathaniel says wearily.

He wishes he knew what Andrew’s face looked like when they talked. He’s never seen Andrew without the drugs, so he can’t accurately imagine a response. He thinks that Andrew would be frowning right now, if they were talking in person. Just a little.

“If you think being vague makes you more interesting, you’re wrong.”

“Andrew—” Nathaniel tangles his hand in his hair and bites down a laugh, torn between exasperation and amusement. “I called Renee. She’s coming to get Jean, and it’s been his phone I’m using.”

It’s quiet on the other end of the phone for a second. Then Andrew says, voice flat and knowing, “Kengo?”

Nathaniel nods, even though he knows Andrew can’t see it. “Riko’s not handling it well.” Then, before Andrew can make the logical leap from one point to another, he hurriedly adds, “Jean’s been taking the brunt of it, but he can’t last much longer.”

Andrew is quiet for a moment, but the silence is different from the expectant one that he always starts their conversations with. It’s more thoughtful, contemplative.

Then Andrew says, tone brooking no argument, “You’re coming back with them.”

Nathaniel winces. “Andrew—”

“Are you really this stupid? What do you think Riko will do to you when you take away his favorite punching bag? Come home.”

_ Come home.  _ The sound of it punches Nathaniel in the stomach, taking all the air from his chest. He thinks of the key he’s hidden in his duffle bag, which he takes out and presses into his palm in the darkest hours of the night.

“I still have people to protect,” Nathaniel says heavily.

“I don’t need your protection,” Andrew snarls. “Come home.”

Nathaniel bows over his knees and doesn’t dare speak, because if he does he will break down. He will beg Andrew to come get him, and Andrew will. He knows this because it’s the truth, irrefutable and untainted by bias. Sunrise, Andrew, death.

So he hangs up.

* * *

Nathaniel is staring at the phone on the ground in front of him. There’s a switchblade hidden under the curve of one hand, and the other hand is clutching onto Jean’s. They’re waiting in the parking lot next to the Nest, the endless sky stretching above them  _ (stars, when was the last time he saw stars?) _ He won’t hesitate to use the blade, if it comes down to it. He won’t like it, but he’ll do it if it means keeping Jean safe.

He can only hope that Renee gets here before that becomes necessary.

“Nathaniel?” Jean whispers hoarsely, his fingers flexing in Nathaniel’s grip. It’s the first sound he’s made in the last few hours, having fallen into an exhausted sleep on the grass sometime earlier. Nathaniel’s been checking to make sure he’s still breathing periodically.

Nathaniel squeezes reassuringly. “ _ Renee will be here soon.” _

Jean is quiet for a second. Nathaniel rubs the blade in his hand, comforted by its presence, the weight of it.

Then Jean says,  _ “But what about you?” _

“Hm?” Nathaniel asks absentmindedly, and then the question registers. He shrugs dismissively.  _ “I’ll be fine.” _

Jean tries to push himself upright, and the sound he makes is pure misery.

“ _ What are you doing?”  _ Nathaniel hisses, shoving Jean back down as gently as he can.  _ “You idiot, you are  _ injured.  _ Lie down.” _

_ “I’m not going without you,”  _ Jean hisses back. A vessel has burst in the corner of his right eye, and his entire face is swollen and bloody even in the darkness, but his glare is still defiant and arrogant as it ever was. Nathaniel would laugh if they weren’t having this conversation, if they weren’t in this situation.

_ Come home,  _ Andrew’s voice whispers in his ear.

_ “You are,”  _ Nathaniel says firmly,  _ “And you will.” _

_ “I said—” _

“You are,” Nathaniel repeats in English. He’s had some time to pull the threads of himself together, to come up with a coherent argument. “And you will. If I leave, my father’s men will find me and kill me. If I leave, Riko will retaliate against Kevin and the Foxes.  _ If I leave,  _ then these past few months will have been for nothing.”

Jean stares at him for a second with wide, searching eyes. Whatever he finds makes him close his eyes and turn away, curl into himself and pull his hand away to wrap around his stomach. The gesture makes him look smaller than he is, makes the tears in his clothes and the blood on his skin stand out that much more.

Nathaniel wants to say something comforting, something to make this better, but he can’t. He knows what Jean is thinking: that months ago Kevin ran away and left Jean behind. Jean promised himself that he would never do the same, that if he ran it would be with Nathaniel.

Nathaniel is forcing him to break that promise. There’s nothing he can say that would make this better. So he puts his other hand to the knife and squeezes the handle, glaring from under his fringe of hair.

The phone rings almost ten minutes later. Nathaniel jumps out of his skin, then relaxes. He picks up the phone and flips it open.

“Renee.”

Jean lifts his head and looks over, a single dark eye gleaming in the street lights.

“Neil,” she says, her voice uncharacteristically hard. “Where are you?”

Nathaniel looks around. It’s not just the cold that’s making the hair on the back of his neck stand up; it feels like someone is watching him. “The circle outside the Nest. Do you know where that is?”

Renee hums lowly, and then says, “I can figure it out.”

Nathaniel feels slightly dubious at that, but the surety in Renee’s voice keeps him from arguing.

Sure enough, she pulls up a couple of minutes later and steps onto the sidewalk, and Nathaniel’s mind goes blank.

He does not know this person. All he can see is the girl who survived street gangs, who has killed before and would do it again if she had the chance. The light casts jagged shadows across her face, and her lips are cold and vacant of their usual smile. She’s all danger and grace, and Nathaniel’s mind is  _ screaming. _

Then Jean leans past him, squeezes his knee. “Renee.”

Renee’s head jerks at the sound of his voice, and her face softens when she catches sight of the two of them, huddled in the grass. “Neil! Jean!”

Nathaniel forces his grip to relax, and he slips the knife back into his belt loop. “Thanks for coming.”

“I’m sorry that I couldn’t come sooner,” Renee responds. The corners of her eyes tighten when they land on Jean. “How are you?”

“He’ll need help to the car,” Nathaniel says, and he feels rather than sees the glare that Jean directs at his face.

“I don’t need help,” he snaps.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Nathaniel snaps back, already pulling Jean’s arm over his shoulders and levering him to his feet. Whatever drug Riko gave him has long since worn off, which is a relief.

Renee comes over and carefully puts Jean’s other arm over her shoulders, then wraps her arm around his waist. Together they hobble to the car, Jean supported between them. He’s taller than they are, so he’s half-bent over to keep his feet on the ground and not dragging against the concrete. They manage. Barely.

Nathaniel carefully arranges Jean’s feet on the back seat, making sure that they won’t get caught when the door closes. Jean grabs his sleeve, a lightning quick movement Nathaniel hadn’t thought him capable of, injured as he is.

_ “Keep the phone, _ ” he rasps.

Nathaniel freezes.  _ “No. It’s yours, I can’t take it.” _

Jean’s grip tightens, and then he yanks Nathaniel so hard he has to throw out his hands to keep from toppling onto Jean.  _ “Take it,”  _ he grits out.  _ “And when it’s too much: call me. I will be there.” _

Nathaniel bows his head, feeling pathetically grateful that he was able to meet Jean, despite everything else. Then he takes a deep breath, disentangles Jean’s hand from his sleeve, and backs out of the car. It feels like he’s just cut off one of his own limbs, and the lonely months without Jean at his side stretch before him.

Renee is waiting for him when he finally emerges.

“Come with me," she begs. There's the same harshness in her eyes as when she stepped out onto Raven territory, but it's tempered a little, to one who knows how to look. Just for him. "Andrew misses you."

He thinks about leaving this place, this dark and nebulous hell which he hasn't left in...god knows how long. He's lost track of the days. He thinks about feeling the sun and the breeze on his face, of not hurting all the time.

He thinks about the last time he saw Andrew, the promises that he made, the promises he broke. He must be at 100% by now, maybe more.

_ Come home,  _ Andrew’s voice says again.  _ Come home. _

It's so tempting. Nathaniel wants it so badly, wants to be Neil so badly, that his breath shudders and catches in his throat.

But.

He came here for a reason.

Nathaniel breathes out, takes a step back and smiles a small, fake smile. "I'm fine, Renee. You should go."

Renee's face crumples for just a second. Then it smooths over—

and she's gone.

Nathaniel stands there for a second in the cool of the night, enjoying the light of the half-moon bathing his face, the twinkling of the stars overhead. He doesn’t know when he’ll be able to see them again,  _ if  _ he’ll be able to see them again. He doesn’t yet know the price for helping Jean escape, but he already knows that it isn’t going to be pretty.

And Jean’s not here. That thought shudders through him all the way to his bones, curling in his chest cavity like a parasite, sapping his will. There is the open sky overhead, a road he can follow wherever it leads, and no one here to hold him back.

The collar around his neck, the one stamped with the Moriyama name, jangles ominously. It’s only in his head, but the sound is enough to drag him from his fantasy.

Nathaniel pulls himself together, turns around, and heads back inside.

He’s almost back to his room when he gets ambushed.

Someone grabs his collar and spins him around, slamming his head hard against the wall. Stars burst across his vision, but before Nathaniel can even think to react there’s a knife pressed to his throat, and he feels the blade bite, just a little.

When his vision finally clears, Riko is staring into his eyes, and his madness is  _ consuming. _

“Where is he?” he hisses. There is a crowd of Ravens behind him, all shuffling and filling up the silence with a constant susurrus of sound. The whispering sounds coalesce into something alive, like the slide of snakes through grass, or the brush of wings through air.

Nathaniel dug this grave. He piled each shovel of dirt at his side, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to climb out.

So he lifts his chin with bravery that he doesn’t feel—

And spits into Riko’s eye.

Riko freezes. The other Ravens also freeze. It seems like the entire world is holding its breath, waiting to see what Riko will do.

Blood trickles down Nathaniel’s throat as the knife presses a little deeper.

_ Maybe this is it,  _ he wonders, but can’t quite bring himself to regret the actions which led him here. Jean is safe. That’s enough.

Then Riko reaches into his pocket and takes out the phone. He backs off, and nods toward the other Ravens. “I want more bruise than skin.”

Nathaniel falls backward. The Ravens descend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the chapter starts with the news that kengo moriyama has died. some ravens come and get jean and neil. riko drugs neil without his consent to keep him from interfering, and then starts beating jean. neil passes out.
> 
> after the first page break, neil wakes up to find that only riko and jean are left. riko tells neil to fix up jean, because they're not done yet. neil decides to get jean out of the nest, and calls renee, who immediately agrees to come. then he calls andrew. andrew tells neil to come home. neil thinks that he still has people to protect, and if he leaves now all these months will have been for nothing. he hangs up. 
> 
> after the second page break, neil has gotten jean outside. jean tells neil to come back with him, but neil disagrees. renee shows up, and as neil is helping jean into the car, jean gives neil his phone, and tells him to call if it gets to be too much. neil heads back inside, but riko was waiting for him. riko takes the phone and snaps it in half, and then tells the ravens to beat neil.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> general warnings for andrew threatening people. also some description of injuries from last chapter

**Andrew**

Renee looks at Andrew. She doesn’t speak, doesn’t say a word, perhaps because she knows if she tries Andrew will lose it.

“What do you  _ mean  _ you didn’t bring him back?” Matt demands, his voice high and furious, and for a second Andrew wants to kill him too. He can’t even  _ look _ at Joshua, who’s hovering at Matt’s shoulder like a shadow.

He’s going to wrap his hands around the throat of the next person who speaks to him.

Kevin isn’t here, which is for the best. Probably hiding in his room. Probably trying to resist the pull of the vodka under his bed. Probably failing.

Renee doesn’t look away. She’s always been stupid like that. “I didn’t have time. He insisted that he had to stay, and I didn’t want to risk Jean’s life.”

“You should have dragged him back anyway,” Aaron snarls. That should be surprising, that  _ should  _ be something that gives Andrew pause, but nothing touches him past the blanket of cold rage.

Finally Renee looks away, her eyes going half-lidded as they focus on the floor. “He’s had enough people forcing him to do what he didn’t want to.”

Andrew barely hears the noise he makes in response to that, but it must be terrifying because even Nicky and Aaron are giving him alarmed looks. He doesn’t care, though. He trusted Renee. He told her to bring Neil back, and she didn’t. He told Neil to come home, and he didn’t. He feels dark and ugly and Neil’s tired voice from the last time he called is echoing in his head, and _fuck_ he needs a smoke.

“Andrew, wait,” Renee calls at his back.

He pauses, curling his hands into fists at his side. Waits for her to speak. His knives are comforting weights on his wrists.

“Do you want to spar?” she asks, her voice lined with solid steel. No more nice little Christian girl. Even Dan and Allison, who would normally be loudly, vocally protesting, are quiet.

Andrew shudders under the rage that boils through him, threatening to overflow. It would be so, so easy to make it look like an accident. He’s done it before. Until those last few moments, Tilda had never known that her death was sitting in the seat next to her.

He forces his hands to relax.

“Ask me again and I’ll kill you.” It’s a promise, and Renee knows it.

The silence he leaves behind is deafening, but Andrew doesn’t care. There’s been an empty space in his life ever since he got back, a hole in the shape of a stupid little runaway who somehow wormed his way into Andrew’s head. His fingers are too cold around his cigarette, like he’s expecting someone else to pluck it from him and stick it in their fool mouth just to breathe in the smoke.

He’s up there for what feels like hours, and his temper slowly cools from furious to simmering. He’s gone through two cigarettes already, but he lets the third one simply sit between his fingers, holding it close to his face as he breathed in the smoke.

The door to the roof behind him opens and closes. For a split second Andrew thinks it’s going to be Neil, which is so blatantly stupid that he scowls and tosses the cigarette to the ground below. He takes a breath before turning around to face whoever it is.

It’s Aaron, wearing a comfortable pair of sweatpants and a sweater, his hair freshly washed. His twin is giving the roof a long, apathetic scan, taking in the dirty ground, the cigarette butts, the crumbling brick. He walks forward until he reaches the edge of the roof and looks over, gauging how long the drop is to the ground. Then he sighs and sits down next to Andrew.

Andrew almost offers him a cigarette, but then he remembers that he threw his last one onto the concrete below. Instead he just stays quiet, staring out over the city, waiting for Aaron to speak.

“He means that much to you?” Aaron asks finally, breaking the silence.

Andrew thinks about that, thinks about how much honesty he owes Aaron. Their sessions with Bee have been going well enough. Aaron has for the most part said nothing, only speaking up when he wants clarification on something that Andrew said. He’s...mellowed out, Andrew thinks. Become almost tolerable.

“He means nothing to me,” Andrew responds coolly.

Aaron snorts, like he heard something very different. “Well, then Katelyn means nothing to me, too.”

Andrew reflexively reaches into his pocket for a smoke, before remembering again that he used them all up. Instead he settles his hands on either side of his knees, leaning back from the edge. “And?”

“You’d tear apart the team to save him,” Aaron says, like he knows anything. Andrew wants to punch him for it. “But the only thing keeping her from me is you. Do the math.”

Andrew stares down at the concrete below, to where he can see a tiny pinprick of the cigarette still smoldering on the concrete. He reflects on how much simpler life was before Neil Josten walked into it.

“I don’t want to hear or see her,” Andrew says. He hears Aaron intake a small, sharp breath, but he plows on before his twin can say anything. “Do  _ not  _ mistake this for me giving a shit about her. She’s your problem, not mine. If you forget this, she will not survive the lesson.”

Aaron’s too elated to pay attention to Andrew’s death threats, which is a shame. “Whatever,” he murmurs breathlessly, then scrambles to his feet and takes off across the roof.

“I hope you two are miserable together,” Andrew says, despite the fact that the door to the roof is already slamming shut. He folds his arms over his knees and turns back to look out over the view, and lets the rage in his soul continue to simmer.

* * *

**Joshua**

Joshua feels strange as he slides into the backseat of Matt’s truck. It’s been a long time since he last rode in a car; he’s mostly been taking public transit to practice. The inside of the vehicle smells of pine, a result of the cardboard air-freshener hanging over the rearview mirror. Dan’s already messing with the CD player in the dashboard, and Matt is taking a pair of sunglasses out of a cupholder.

“I’m in the middle,” Allison says, shoving at Joshua’s shoulder. Joshua jumps and quickly presses himself up against the window to avoid touching her as she and Renee pile into the backseat next to him. “Relax, dude, I don’t bite.”

“Much,” Dan quips.

“Settle down now, kids,” Matt admonishes, wagging his finger at them.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Allison says. For a second Joshua thinks she’s being serious, but then Matt laughs and starts the car.

“Are you excited for your first night practice, Joshua?” Renee asks, leaning forward so she can see him. “Kevin says that he tries to structure it similarly to a Raven practice.”

“Not too similar, I hope,” Joshua says dryly, recalling those brutal, oppressive sixteen-hour days. “I don’t know. It’s been a while since I’ve gone to a practice run by Kevin.”

“Kevin used to run practices in the Nest?” Matt asks, glancing at Joshua in the rearview mirror.

Joshua nods absently. “Yeah, when Tetsuji and Riko were busy with family stuff. He was  _ way  _ more lenient than Riko and Tetsuji.”

“You’re joking,” Allison says dubiously. “Kevin?  _ Lenient?” _

Joshua pauses and winces, realizing that he has just dug himself into a hole. Any honest response he comes up with is going to broach topics that he doesn’t want to discuss with them.

Not yet, anyway.

Luckily Renee seems to sense his apprehension, because she gently cuts in, “Compared with Riko and Tetsuji, I’m sure that anyone would seem lenient.”

“Yeah,” Joshua agrees quickly, relieved. “Exactly.”

“Ooo, does anyone mind if I turn the music up?” Dan asks suddenly, already reaching for the volume knob. “I love this song.”

They leave the volume on high for a while after that. The upperclassmen seem to know all the songs on the CD, either singing along or skipping the track before the opening notes have even finished. Joshua doesn’t know the group, so he just folds himself tight into the corner and peers out the window, watching the world scroll by.

He doesn’t feel awkward, though, even though he probably should. His heart is cautiously light, cautiously comfortable, and he wonders if he could learn to sing along with the soundtrack.

“I want to sign with the Foxes,” Joshua says impulsively.

There’s a brief pause. Dan and Matt don’t hear him, too busy harmonizing in the front seats, but Allison whips around and gapes. Renee cranes her neck around Allison to try and get a better look, light eyes wide.

“Hold on!” Allison shouts, throwing her arm into the front seat. “Turn down the  _ music!” _

“Jesus, Allison!” Matt swears, swerving violently, while Dan hits pause. “Not when I’m driving!”

“This is important!” she responds, shaking her mane of golden hair. “Joshua, repeat what you just said?”

“Um,” Joshua says, darting a look around the car, suddenly regretting his decision. “I want to sign with the Foxes?”

“Woah, for real?” Matt asks, an excited grin splitting his face. Without turning away from the road, he reaches into the back seat and punches Joshua’s thigh. “That’s awesome, dude.”

Allison reaches over and ruffles Joshua’s hair. “Glad you’ve finally seen the light.”

“We’re always happy to poach another Raven,” Dan says, her smile sharp around the edges.

“Do you have a plan for the Ravens?” Renee asks quietly, ever the pragmatist.

“Not yet,” Joshua responds, sobering.

“I’ll help you.”

Joshua wants to ask how the  _ hell  _ she’ll manage that one, but is prevented by Matt saying, “We’re here, guys.”

“We can talk later,” Renee says, before they climb out from the truck.

Joshua takes a deep, settling breath. He didn’t expect for that to go so well, considering how he acted toward them the first couple weeks of school.  _ I’m a Fox, _ he thinks experimentally, and likes the way the words sound in his head. He wonders if they’ll sound even better aloud, but he’s not sure he’s ready for that yet.

When Renee said that Kevin was trying to structure the night practices like a Raven practice, she apparently meant that he was trying to make them experts in as many Raven drills as he possibly could. The way it was explained to him, the practices generally start as individual drills, ending with team exercises.

Matt is doing some of the trickier backliner footwork drills, while Aaron and Nicky are still perfecting the basic ones. Dan is shooting balls at cones, trying to knock them all over, while Allison shoots balls at Andrew. Kevin is overseeing the whole practice like a king overlooking his subjects, frowning at all of them. Joshua’s never been able to tell whether or not that frown is approving or disapproving.

Joshua watches them work for ten minutes, before approaching Kevin.

“Graham,” Kevin says coolly.

“Have you been teaching them illegal moves?” Joshua asks, ignoring the chilly reception.

Kevin flicks a surprised glance his way, before scowling darkly. “I would rather the Foxes play cleanly.”

Joshua rolls his eyes. “That’s good and all, but the Ravens don’t. You haven’t even taught them the counter moves, have you?”

Kevin grits his teeth and folds his arms over his chest. “We don’t  _ need  _ to play dirty. We’re not the Ravens.”

“They need to know how, Kevin,” Joshua insists impatiently. “If they don’t, someone’s going to get hurt, and you know it.”

“Are you in charge of this practice?” Kevin spits. “I’m not giving anyone an excuse to say that we won because we cheated.”

“I may not be in charge,” Joshua growls flatly, “But this is my team now. Congratulations, I’m invested in its success. If a Raven does something unexpected and the Foxes don’t know how to respond, that’s on you. At the very least if you won’t teach them the illegal plays, then let  _ me  _ do it.”

Kevin freezes, staring at Joshua as though he’s never seen him before. Joshua raises his chin, refusing to back down.

“...fine,” Kevin concedes finally, though he looks none too happy about it.

Joshua flashes him a quick smile. “Thank you.”

* * *

**Kevin**

In the past year or so, Kevin has come to hate his own reflection.

He doesn’t think that he’s particularly unattractive. He sees his mother in his nose and the shape of his jaw, his father in his eyes and his smile. That’s not what bothers him so much. 

It’s the  _ 2 _ inked onto his face. It’s a claim of ownership, a self-perpetuated limitation.  _ Number 2,  _ second best to Riko no matter what. Worse than that is the fact that Kevin did it to himself, placed that chain around his neck and was content.

Kevin has had  _ enough  _ of being held back, by everyone  _ and  _ himself. No more fear. No more  _ hiding. _

He climbs the stairs one at a time, his hand pressed against the bandaid on his face. He is exultant, and he is  _ terrified.  _ Riko will kill him for this. There’s no going back, not now.

Kevin finds that he does not care.

He opens the door to his dorm room and stumbles inside. Andrew turns around, and his eyes immediately hone in on the bandaid, like he knows.

Nicky is far less observant. He rolls his eyes at Kevin, sprawling languidly over the back of his chair. “Where have you  _ been?  _ We’re leaving soon. We thought we’d have to leave without you.”

“Had some business to take care of,” Kevin rasps. Then, without ceremony, he rips the bandaid off.

Nicky chokes on a gasp. Aaron swears under his breath, eyes wide. Andrew doesn’t seem shocked, but he gets up and approaches Kevin, staring hard at the new tattoo.

“Let Riko be king,” Kevin says, his legs so unsteady that he can barely stand. “Most coveted, most protected. He’ll sacrifice every piece he has to protect his throne. Me?” He makes an aimless gesture toward his face. “I’m going to be the deadliest piece on the board.”

“Queen,” Andrew says, reaching out and taking Kevin’s chin in his hand to get a better look. “He’s going to be furious.”

“Fuck him,” Kevin gasps out, shaking Andrew’s hand away and sinking onto his bed. He runs his hands through his hair, trying to ignore the sensation of falling. God, he wants so badly to be drunk right now. “They should be afraid.”

Andrew is quiet for a long time. Kevin runs his hand through his hair again and finally looks up to see his expression.

Andrew is smiling. It’s the first time Kevin has seen him smile since coming off the drugs, and it’s quiet and calm and far,  _ far _ away from the manic caricatures he used to wear.  _ This is real,  _ Kevin thinks, staring up into that grinning face.  _ Oh, God, Andrew is smiling. There’s no going back. _

“Now it’s getting fun,” Andrew says.

Kevin barks out a surprised laugh. “If you say so.”

Thirty minutes later, they’re pulling up to Abby’s place. Andrew rolls down the windows and stops the engine before getting out, Kevin a step behind him. Nicky and Aaron stay in the car, and Kevin thinks he sees Nicky lounging all over the backseat like it’s a luxury couch, pushing Aaron against the car door.

Abby opens the door a couple of seconds after they knock. She doesn’t smile, but she does step out of the way to let them inside.

“Be gentle with him,” she instructs firmly. “He’s in bad shape. Don’t rile him up.”

“We’ll be nice,” Andrew says.

Abby doesn’t look convinced, but they had called ahead to make sure that they were allowed to visit Jean, so she only shakes her head and lets it go. She retreats back into the kitchen, a nervous look in her eye, as they head down the hallway and into the guest room.

Jean’s room stinks so strongly of pain and antiseptic that Kevin almost gags. It takes a second for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, but when they do, he feels his heart sink into his stomach.

Jean blinks at them blearly when Kevin and Andrew enter the room. He doesn’t sit up though, which probably means that he’s too injured to do so. He would never leave himself prone in front of another person, let alone Kevin and Andrew.

And the damage is, in a word, terrible. His entire face is a mass of angry bruises; chunks of hair have been ripped from his head, and there are bandages on the visible parts of his neck. The whites of his eyes are dyed red from burst blood vessels.

_ Neil is still in there,  _ Kevin thinks, and his stomach clenches.

“You look like shit,” Andrew observes.

“Nice to see you too, monster,” Jean rasps, glaring with all the energy he has. It’s surprisingly intimidating.

“Jean,” Kevin says, slowly coming over to sit on the bed next to the striker. The longer he looks, the more he sees new details of the torture Jean was subjected to. “Jean, I…”

“I have nothing to say to you,” Jean turns his head toward the wall, as firm a dismissal as he can get in his current state. There’s a world of hurt in that voice, a world of betrayal, that makes Kevin want to curl into a ball and hide away.

They were close once. They trusted each other.

“I know,” Kevin says quietly. “I just wanted to show you this.”

Then he takes off the bandaid, and waits for Jean to look at him.

Jean hesitates for a moment, then another, his jaw tightening stubbornly. He must realize that Kevin and Andrew aren’t planning on moving until he does as they ask, though, because he finally lets out a sigh and looks up.

His eyes land on Kevin’s cheek.

For a second he just stares at Kevin’s face dumbly, as though unable to comprehend what he’s seeing. Then his eyes widen and his jaw drops in disbelief. Hand shaking, he reaches up toward Kevin’s face, as though he needs to touch it to make sure it’s not just a hallucination. Kevin obligingly leans forward, letting Jean feel the reddened skin, the permanency of the mark.

“It’s real,” Kevin says.

“Are you insane?” Jean asks, breathless. “Riko will kill you.”

“Fuck him,” Kevin says, echoing himself from earlier. “I’m done carrying the weight of his collar. He should be scared of  _ me.” _

Jean presses his fingertips against the tattoo one last time before letting his hand drop back to the bed. He shakes his head as though he  _ still  _ can’t believe that Kevin got the tattoo, that he’s committed to spitting in the face of the Moriyama family. “I hope that dog of yours can protect you as well as you think he can.”

Andrew raises an eyebrow, apparently unimpressed with Jean’s assessment of his ability. “I can handle Riko.”

Jean’s eyes narrow and he opens his mouth. Kevin jumps in before he can share any controversial opinions regarding Andrew’s ability to deal with the slighted second son of the Moriyama family. “What about Neil?”

Jean glances at Kevin knowingly, but then shakes his head and looks away. “What  _ about _ Neil?”

“Well,” Kevin gestures in frustration. Jean  _ knows  _ what he’s asking; he’s just being deliberately obtuse to be annoying. “How  _ is  _ he?”

There’s a pause. Kevin watches Jean’s jaw work, like he’s biting his lip. 

“I haven’t been able to get ahold of him.”

“What?” Kevin asks blankly.

“I gave him my phone so he could call me,” Jean explains, voice laced with worry. “But when I tried calling, it said...it said that the number had been disconnected. I’m worried that Riko might have discovered it.”

“He has access to the library computers, doesn’t he?” Kevin asks, addressing this question to Andrew. He thought that the two had maybe been emailing back and forth, though he isn’t certain. Andrew generally claimed that he was allergic to books and therefore never went to the library, but Kevin had caught him at the computers multiple times and PSU’s student email had a very distinctive website design.

Andrew’s expression is carefully blank as he says, “He hasn’t contacted me for a week.”

That’s as good as an admission of concern from Andrew. Kevin’s heart drops. “So...we don’t know how he’s doing.”

“Riko won’t hurt him too badly,” Jean interjects quietly. “Tetsuji wants him to play against the Foxes in the finals.”

Kevin knows that means precisely nothing. Even though he was never on the receiving end, he is well aware of the fact that Riko knows how to cause someone pain without seriously injuring them.

“Then the only thing we can do is wait until the Ravens game,” Kevin says, hating the words as they come out of his mouth.

“Yes,” Andrew says lowly. “Then we’ll see whether or not he’s still in one piece.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Nathaniel**

Right before they walk onto the court, Riko grabs the front of Nathaniel’s facemask and shoves him into a wall. It’s a bold move, especially with the Foxes, the crowds, and the reporters so close. Tetsuji doesn’t say anything though, just keeps on walking like he’s given up trying to control his nephew.

Nathaniel glares out from behind the cage, biting down on a groan of pain. His back still hasn’t healed. He’s held together by sheer, desperate willpower and shredded flesh.

_ “You  _ will _ play to your fullest potential today,” _ Riko hisses, his breath coming too fast despite them only having gone through a warmup. He looks unhinged, more so than usual. Jean’s loss unsettled him, but put a game with Kevin on top of that...  _ “Do you understand?” _

Nathaniel’s started in a game three times before this, and two of those times resulted in a beating so bad he could hardly walk. But he knows that’s not what Riko is referring to. He’s talking about the Foxes they’re about to play, about finally being amongst the team he left behind again, even if it  _ is  _ on the wrong side.

Nathaniel decides not to say that he had no intention of holding back. He hates the Ravens and he hates the Nest and most of all he hates Riko, but he could never hate Exy. He respects Kevin and Andrew too much to go easy on them.

“Yeah,” he says instead, lowering his eyes and clenching his hands around his racquet. The other Ravens stream by him, part for them like water around a stone.

Riko stares at him a second longer, as though able to sense that Nathaniel’s not saying everything. Then he lets out a wordless growl, shoves Nathaniel’s head back into the wall and stalks away.

Nathaniel watches him go, trying to identify the emotion welling up in his chest. He’s not worried about Riko, but...

Riko is losing it. He knew that before, has watched the slow spiral for weeks now, but it’s much more pronounced now. Even the other Ravens are getting nervous around him, are beginning to treat him like a wild animal instead of a feared and respected King.

And Nathaniel thinks—

_ If someone notices at a publicized game such as this...if  _ Ichirou  _ notices… _

But no. It’s a ridiculous thought, and impossible thought, one he can’t entertain. He  _ cannot  _ give himself false hope. Not when he has so little left to hang onto.

He looks over his left shoulder and opens his mouth, words gathering—before remembering that Jean isn’t here anymore. He can almost hear his voice saying,  _ you are a fool,  _ and it soothes the knot of tension, just a little. He takes a deep breath. Fixes his facial expression so it shows none of what’s hiding beneath the surface.

Prepares to meet the Foxes again.

He steps out onto the court, and looks out over a wave of orange. Kevin’s gone up to meet Riko at the half-court line, but the others are staring hard at the Ravens. The first person to see him is Matt and he grabs onto Joshua’s shoulder and points across the court like it’s normal, like they’re friends. Nicky follows their gaze, sees Nathaniel and immediately starts waving, and then all of them are staring.

Nathaniel can’t bring himself to do anything other than stare helplessly back, the sounds of the crowd and the push of bodies fading into nothing. He feels like he’s standing at the bottom of the ocean, the air too thick to breathe, staring up at a distant shore. He feels like he’s been frozen, like his whole body is numbed to ice, as the world crawls by without him. He feels like nothing. He feels like screaming.

The rush of pain, of loneliness and wistfulness which nearly bowls him over is not Nathaniel’s, it’s all Neil Josten. He wants to be  _ there.  _ He wants to play with them, to laugh and argue and be with them  _ and— _

“Get a move on,” Engle hisses from behind, and then the spell is broken.

Nathaniel takes a deep breath, releases it. Shoves Neil Josten back beneath the surface, and turns away.

* * *

**Kevin**

_ “You’re still entertaining these ridiculous delusions,”  _ Riko snarls at him, Japanese coming almost too fast to understand. Kevin’s hand tightens around his racquet. He feels exposed without Andrew at his back, but it’s an absence he knows how to handle.  _ “After we win this game, you’ll see who was right. I proved it to Wesninski. You are not so difficult a challenge.” _

Kevin looks at him mildly, and lets his eyes flicker to where Neil is staring at the Foxes with naked yearning.  _ “Yes, it really seems like he’s bought in.” _

Riko follows his gaze, and Kevin is almost shocked by the depth of hatred that darkens his face. They’re out in public, right before a game that’s getting a lot of coverage, but Riko looks ready to  _ murder. _

Kevin wants to take a step back, but he holds his ground, tilts his face so Riko can see the Queen more clearly. “ _ Your kingdom crumbles, Riko.” _

Riko starts at that, like Kevin has said something particularly shocking.

Then he turns away, a snarl on his lips, shoots something at Nathaniel, then gets into position.

Kevin turns to Joshua, who’s pale and sweating already. His eyes keep darting up and away from his old teammates, and he’s wringing his hands around his racquet like he’s thinking about snapping it.

But he hasn’t run away yet, which is a good sign.

“Play like we practiced,” Kevin instructs under his breath.

“Kevin,” Joshua wheezes back, eyes bright. He looks two seconds from falling apart, desperate and determined all at once. This is his first game as an official Fox, not just a replacement. “Kevin, did I make the right decision?”

Kevin looks at him. He can’t blame him for the sudden second thoughts; he knows how terrifying it is to leave a team like the Ravens.

So he says, “Win. Then we’ll see.”

He turns away before he can see the reaction to that.

Dan shoots off the first serve of the night, and Kevin surges forward—

Only to get blocked by a familiar form, blue eyes peering out from behind a pitch black face mask.

“Not so fast, Day,” Neil Josten says—but no. It’s Nathaniel Wesninski. Kevin can read it in the way his shoulders are set just so, the way his face is courting the fine line between desperation and quiet, simmering anger. Neil was never so lost in his past, not when he played Exy.

Kevin knows that he should be angry, but all he feels is a thrill of exhilaration at facing this person on the court again. Nathaniel is perhaps one of the only people alive who understands his love of Exy. Playing against him, proving himself against him, especially after months of intense training, is almost enough to overshadow the pain of seeing him in Raven colors.

But then Nathaniel’s foot hits the ground wrong, and his face tightens. Kevin sees it, knows what it means, but doesn’t hesitate in running right over him.

_ He’s hurt _ , Kevin thinks, but there’s nothing that he can do about it, and he won’t insult Nathaniel by going easy on him. If Nathaniel were any other player, any other person, Kevin would have done the same.

It doesn’t stop him from wanting to wince every time Nathaniel is too slow to react, even though he should’ve seen it coming. It doesn’t stop him from seeing the way Riko drags Nathaniel in close and hisses in his ear, seeing the way he wilts and withers as his teammates wordlessly brush by.

But even despite this, even despite Nathaniel’s pain and the frenetic desperation of the Foxes, Kevin’s having fun. Nathaniel is skilled, a formidable foe, and his presence is almost enough to make him forget about Riko. He and Joshua are always on their toes, always searching for new openings and ways to get around Nathaniel.

And when he smirks at Nathaniel after getting a pass around him, when he scowls after getting foiled—

Nathaniel smiles back. Small and tentative, but he smiles back.

* * *

**Joshua**

It’s been several months since the last time Joshua has seen his old team.

He recognizes every single one of them, knows their faces and their positions, the quickest way to get them angry and the quickest way to make them laugh. It feels strange to be wearing orange when he’s surrounded by a sea of black and red.

_ “Traitor,”  _ Reacher hisses, a second before she shoves him into the ground so violently it’s impossible to disguise it as an accident. She accepts her yellow card with a toss of her head and sneers at him before stalking away.

Joshua flushes. Knowing them also means that he can see the vitriol in their eyes, the pure contempt tempered by the heat of betrayal. They normally have some measure of control during games, but they’ve been reckless in trying to hurt him. He’s trying not to let it affect him, though. He feels…

If someone had asked him months ago if betrayal was worthy of pain and suffering, he would have sneered  _ yes.  _ He had hated Kevin for running from them, for betraying them for a second-rate team in another division. But now he looks at these people who’ve drained themselves dry and destroyed themselves to please a master who barely looks at them twice, and he just feels sad.

They don’t know.

Matt comes up from behind him and touches his arm. “Hey, man, they’ve been pretty rough on you. You good?”

Joshua hesitates for a second. Then he compulsively reaches up and shoves his face mask down over his teammate’s eyes, feeling giddy and brave. “Worry about yourself.”

Matt lets out a surprised laugh and pushes the mask back up, dark eyes bright. A short distance away, Kevin lets out a quiet snort and turns away, but Joshua knows that he was paying attention to the exchange. Nicky and Dan are at his back further down the court, and Renee is in the goal, and—

He’s having fun. Despite the hostile Ravens around him, he’s never had so much fun. Not that he’d ever say it out loud.

Only, there’s one thing.

There’s tension on the court bleeding from and encompassing Neil Josten. Joshua’s pretty sure the Foxes don’t even realize it, the way they’ve fixated on him, the way they look at him between and during gameplay. Neil certainly hasn’t noticed. They’re orbiting around him, desperate to see their lost family member after so long.

_ The only way to get him back,  _ Kevin had said quietly to the other Foxes, Andrew a steadying weight at his back,  _ is to win. _

They’re not just fighting for the championship title, they’re fighting for Neil, too, and anyone who looks too hard can read it on their faces, plain as day. Joshua aches for them.

He would’ve been jealous a few weeks ago,  _ is  _ still jealous. A little. How could he not be, when it’s obvious how much they love him?

But that’s the crux of it. They love Neil, and the only way to get him back is to win. The only way to free him from that hell—

(And he has nightmares about laughing at Neil’s prone, bruised form, Engle aiming kicks at his unprotected back, thinking he  _ deserved _ it—

What have they done to him since that time? He knows what they used to do to Jean. He shudders to think about it.)

—is to win.

And he  _ wants  _ to win. He wants to prove that he belongs here, and the Ravens were  _ wrong,  _ with their petty backstabbing and their relentless, neverending fear.

Joshua steadies himself with a breath and throws himself back into the game, running as though his life depended on it.

And the first time he scores—

The first time he scores he throws his head back and  _ screams,  _ shattering the air around him like thunder. He screams until his team descends upon him, until Matt pounds on his back with too much force, until Kevin smiles a genuine, triumphant smile, until Dan shoves down on his helmet encouragingly.

_ I’m theirs,  _ he wants to shout at the Ravens sneering and snarling at him. It gives him the courage to keep getting back up every time they shove at him, every time they whisper harsh words in his ear.  _ I’m theirs, and they’re mine, and we’re going to take back what is ours. _

* * *

**Nathaniel**

“Remember your place,” Riko hisses at him.

He’s had to say it almost five times now since the beginning of the first half. Nathaniel knows why. He’d caught the ball and had been halfway down the court before remembering to send it to Riko.

Normally it would scare him, but he only feels mad. He wants to win. The Foxes are difficult opponents even with Renee in the goal, and he wants to  _ win. _ Riko’s grudges are holding the team back.

“Yeah,” he says back without looking at the other man.

He knows that Riko is swelling up indignantly even without looking at him, but then Tetsuji says, _ “Riko.” _

Riko deflates without saying a word, and the other teammates in the locker room don’t dare look at him. They’re all thinking the same thing. Even though they’re ahead on points they still don’t feel like they’re winning, because Kevin doesn’t seem to care about the score. Andrew being in the Fox’s goal is going to reinvigorate them, and the situation just feels dangerous.

_ “Focus on the second half of the game, _ ” Tetsuji continues.

Riko flushes at the implied insult.  _ “We are winning by four points!” _

_ “Then double it!”  _ Testuji snaps. Nathaniel gapes. He’s never heard Tetsuji raise his voice before.

Clearly Riko feels the same way. He goes shock white and recoils, his lips pressed into a bloodless line.  _ “Yes, sir,”  _ he says, dipping his head.

No one says another word for the rest of the break.

* * *

**Andrew**

Andrew knows the challenge that he’s stepping into.

They’re down by four points. The team is already tired, and it’s only going to get worse as the second half progresses.

But he knows the cost of losing, and he’s got promises to keep.

He gets into the goal, and the first thing he does is  _ slam  _ the racquet against the ground so hard that his teeth rattle. The sound echoes throughout the court, and a dozen heads turn to stare at him.

Including ice-blue eyes half-hidden behind a curtain of auburn hair. Those eyes are staring at him, drinking him in, and Andrew lifts his chin in response. He doesn’t let on how the sight of Neil makes his mouth go dry. He doesn’t show the rage that rolls through him when he notices that Neil is limping slightly. He gathers the breath that catches in his chest and buries it down deep, where he can pretend that it means nothing.

Kevin walks onto the court wielding his racquet in his left hand, and the Ravens shift uneasily as the crowd goes ballistic. It’s like they know that this half is going to be a harder fight than the last, despite the point difference.

The game starts anew.

Andrew’s fresh on the court, which is the only reason that he can keep up with the onslaught. The strikers keep coming, faster and harder than before.  _ Your desperation is showing,  _ he thinks viciously as he sends the ball to the other side of the court.

And through it all, he gets little glimpses of tanned legs, bruised arms. Flashes of bright blue eyes so intense that they almost glow, a determined scowl. Now is really not the time to want someone, but Neil has always spit in the face of rationality and good sense.

He blocks another, then another, sends a ball to Kevin, then Joshua, then blocks another. Aaron’s back is to him, and so is Matt’s, and they’re soaked in sweat and their legs are visibly trembling, but he can’t care about that right now. He has to hold them off. He can’t let them get  _ anything  _ in—

And then Jenkins slams into him and he can’t— _ breathe— _

* * *

**Nathaniel**

Nathaniel is so furious he can barely think straight.

He’s there before he can think better of it, throwing himself against Jenkins and knocking him down. All he can see is him slamming into Andrew, and the other man teetering like he’s having trouble finding his feet. Red spots flash over Nathaniel’s eyes. He’s angry, angrier than he’s been in a long time, because enough.  _ Enough. _

No Raven is ever going to touch one of his Foxes, ever again.

But then strong, corded arms are wrapping around his chest and dragging him backward. Nathaniel starts to struggle, but then freezes when he hears Matt say, low and tight, “Neil, Neil,  _ Neil—” _

Nathaniel goes limp in his arms, the tension draining from him. He wants to turn around and grab onto Matt, wants to hide his face in strong shoulders because  _ enough, enough, he’s had enough, he wants Jean he wants Matt he wants Dan he wants  _ Andrew _ — _

He breathes deeply, then shoves away Matt’s grip and—

* * *

**Kevin**

Kevin sees the second Nathaniel realized that Riko was watching him. His face goes pale and wan, his hands tightening around his racquet and squeezing, hard.

Riko doesn’t give anything away, though, which Kevin knows is scarier than if he  _ had  _ shown some emotion. Instead he just turns away.

Kevin winces. Things are not going to be pleasant for Nathaniel after this.

The game continues.

* * *

**Andrew**

Things get uglier after that. It’s sheer luck that the Foxes only get yellow carded; the Ravens are getting red carded left and right, since they have so many players they can burn through.

Riko is everywhere, and Andrew watches him flit back and forth across the court, watches him shoot again and again with increasing fury. But Andrew won’t let anything get in. He’s not. He has a game to win, a promise to keep, and Riko  _ fucking  _ Moriyama isn’t going to get in the way of that.

* * *

**Joshua**

Joshua’s throat feels like sandpaper, and every breath drives the ache a little deeper.

Gameplay halts, and Joshua is so surprised that he can’t stop his forward momentum. His legs crumple and he sinks to the floor, gasping for air, his whole body trembling with exhaustion.

_ No,  _ He wants to shout at himself, shoving the end of his racquet into the floor and pushing.  _ Not yet, get upgetupgetup! _

“Come on,” Aaron mutters, and then suddenly there are two small hands under his arm, helping him up. “Come on, Graham, we’re not finished yet.”

Joshua stumbled to his feet. Throws a quick nod to Aaron.

Pushes onward.

* * *

**Nathaniel**

Nathaniel feels every step pounding away in his flesh, all the way down in his bones. The racquet slips in his grip. The world is a kaleidoscope, he can barely see Kevin even though the other man is right in front of him and—

Then he’s gone.

* * *

**Kevin**

Kevin catches a throw from Joshua. The other man is an orange blur under the heat of the lights, and he gets a snapshot of bared teeth and pure weariness from beneath the face mask.

He shoots the goal. He feels no emotion, only purpose. Only him and the ball, and the endless court before him.

The goal lights up red.

* * *

**Riko**

Riko is the second son of Lord Kengo Moriyama.

Riko is the second son of Lord Kengo Moriyama, younger brother of Lord Ichirou Moriyama. They are the kings of a criminal enterprise. That is not his domain. It is not his world. Riko is the second—

_ Riko is the second— _

Riko is the best Exy player in the collegiate circuit and the pro league. He is better than Kevin Day, who has only succeeded as much as he had because of the Moriyama family. He is better than Nathaniel Wesninski, who thinks bravery to the point of stupidity is enough to let him win.

_ Riko is the best Riko is the best Kevin Day knows this Jean Moreau knows this he knows this they are— _

_ They are— _

No one is his equal.

Riko knows that he is the best Exy player. This is his kingdom. It is his domain.

The goal lights up red.

_ This is my domain. _

The buzzer screams in his ears.

_ This is my— _

Riko looks at the scoreboard. It’s wrong. It’s wrong, it’s wrong. He has not lost.

He has not lost.

He has not—


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for: gun, canonical character death

**Nathaniel**

Nathaniel stares up at the scoreboard numbly. The roar of the crowd is distant, like he’s hearing it from far, far away.

Kevin scored in the last few seconds of the game. He did some complicated movement that Nathaniel’s exhausted mind couldn’t keep up with, and he  _ won.  _ He’s the best Exy player in their division.

Kevin is staring up at the scoreboard too, like he doesn’t believe it himself. He’s covered in sweat and shaking from exertion, but he looks like he’s a hundred feet tall.

Nathaniel looks over at Riko who’s also staring up at the score, but he doesn’t think that Riko’s seeing anything. There’s a fragility in his eyes, like glass about to shatter. It’s such a quiet emotion, such a vulnerable one, that’s in sharp juxtaposition with the prevalent madness over the past couple of weeks. Nathaniel almost pities him.

Almost.

“Hey,” Nathaniel croaks.

Riko jerks, and the glass in his eyes shatters. Beneath them are only black holes, dark, sucking in all the light about them.

Nathaniel sneers, unafraid. “Guess you always knew what it felt like to be second, you piece of shit.” __

Riko cocks his head, like a bird of prey sighting down a particularly troublesome mouse. Then he starts walking forward, his racquet hoisted above his head, his expression twisting into a fury so profound that Nathaniel can’t see its bottom.

_ Ah,  _ he thinks, and his back screams when he lifts his hands. He popped most of his stitches during the game, and the pain has returned with a vengeance. He can’t defend himself.  _ I may have miscalculated. _

He presses his eyes shut and tilts his face upward. If he’s going to die at Riko’s hand, he’ll do it with dignity.

Then, unexpectedly, there’s a sharp  _ crack,  _ followed by a scream of agony. Nathaniel’s eyes fly open, and he’s staring right up into Andrew’s face. The man is leaning casually against his heavy goalie’s racquet, cool as a cucumber, staring down at something on the floor.

Nathaniel follows his gaze. Riko is lying on the floor clutching his arm, racquet lying a few feet away. It takes him a second to put the pieces together, but when he does he looks sharply at Andrew again.

_ He protected me from Riko? _

“Andrew,” Nathaniel rasps, throat dry.

The calm, uncaring look Andrew gives him is belied by the way his chest heaves up and down with the effort it took him to get over here as quickly as he did. Nathaniel can see his legs trembling with the effort it takes not to fall over.

Andrew smirks at him, and Neil stares up into those clear, focused eyes, takes in the lack of the drugged edge, and—

“Wesninski,” someone says, and shadows fall across Nathaniel’s face. Nathaniel sees Andrew’s face morph from satisfaction to fury a split second before his view is blocked entirely.

He looks up, and feels his heart plummet in his chest. There are three men surrounding him, all dressed in security guard uniforms. They’re all Japanese, and their faces are all cold as they stare him down like he was no more than a bug on the bottom of their shoes.

“You’re coming with us,” the one directly in front of him says. Through a crack between one man and the next, he can see another group lifting Riko to his feet.

The men don’t have to say anything for him to understand:  _ Big Brother is calling. _

* * *

The first thing that Nathaniel sees when he enters the room in the East tower is Riko and Tetsuji, sitting side by side on the couch. Tetsuji is straight-backed, as proud as ever, but Riko is cradling his shattered arm, looking more beaten down than Nathaniel has ever seen him. Vicious satisfaction ripples through him at the sight of his tormentor so cowed.

It takes him a second to tear his eyes away from Riko’s face, but when he does he notices Ichirou Moriyama, standing by the windows overlooking the court. It takes everything that Nathaniel has not to sink down and press his face deferentially to the floor. He’s not in the Nest, and Riko and Tetsuji can’t do anything to him for disrespecting the Moriyama family, even if it  _ is  _ Ichirou.

He’s so sick of this family.

The silence stretches on, and as the time passes by Nathaniel wonders if he’s missed some sort of cue, if he really  _ was  _ supposed to prostrate himself. His hands begin to grow clammy, and his nerves start to press against the inside of his stomach. The bruises on his back from Riko’s last beating still haven’t healed, and they pang quietly in remembered pain.

Ichirou starts forward, and although it’s not toward Nathaniel, the movement is enough to send him flinching a step backward, and one of the men in the corner gives him a concerned look. Instead, he approaches Tetsuji, his expression smooth like the still water of a pond. He speaks to the older man in Japanese, but it’s so quiet and quick that Nathaniel can’t make out a word. When Ichirou finishes speaking Tetsuji bows his head over his knees and doesn’t move to rise, even when his nephew moves away to stand before Riko.

Riko finally raises his head, and there’s hollows in his face where his eyes would normally be. He looks pale and sallow, broken as Ichirou crouches before him.

Some part of Nathaniel’s mind makes the connection between that position and the hunting crouch of a giant cat, poised to attack some unsuspecting prey.

“Ichirou,” Riko breathes. Nathaniel has never heard him sound like this, not even when Kengo finally died. There’s despair in there, mixed with helplessness and frustration and overall  _ defeat. _

Ichirou puts his hand to the side of Riko’s face, and some horrified part of Nathaniel’s mind realizes what’s about to happen a split second before it does.

The gun in Ichirou’s hand empties itself into Riko’s temple, sending blood spattering onto the leather couch and onto Tetsuji’s still obedient form. The man doesn’t react to his nephew’s death, but Nathaniel can’t  _ breathe. _

Then Ichirou straightens, and turns to look at Nathaniel. The gun looks too comfortable in his hands, a man who knows to the millimeter how well he can shoot.

And just as he knew before, he knows now that in the next few seconds, the next bullet will bury itself into his forehead.

_ “Wait!”  _ Nathaniel gasps out. “Wait.”

Ichirou pauses and tilts his head to one side, a bird of prey momentarily stymied by a particularly vexing mouse. Nathaniel tries not to shiver or flinch.

Nathaniel has never been one to care much for the Japanese manners and propriety Tetsuji and Riko have tried to beat into him, but he  _ does  _ remember them. He sinks down to his knees and presses his face into the carpet, and says in his best broken, formal Japanese,  _ “This one would ask Lord Moriyama to listen to their selfish request.” _

The only sound is the intake of breath on the other side of the room.

Then Ichirou says, in smooth, unaccented English, “Why should I? You have caused the downfall of my brother and brought misfortune to my family. You have no value to me.”

Nathaniel swallows. It sounds like an abrupt dismissal, but there’s curiosity hiding under those words. Ichirou hasn’t killed him, after all.

“I don’t have any value  _ yet _ ,” Nathaniel says delicately, carefully choosing every word that comes out of his mouth. He knows the price if he screws this up. “But I would request that you allow me to repay your family for the inconveniences I’ve caused. The average Exy player makes three million dollars a year. Let me donate it to your family.”

“Your team lost tonight,” Ichirou says coldly. “Why should I believe that you can become a professional?”

“I was being held back. My abilities shone best when I was at Palmetto State.” Then, without thinking about it, “Your brother’s pride saw to our loss. You were wise in handling such a danger to your family’s prestige.”

It’s only after the words leave his lips does he wonder if he should’ve been a bit more respectful. Ichirou doesn’t say anything, though. Nathaniel doesn’t dare look up to check his expression.

Then Ichirou says, “Look me in the eye and listen very carefully.”

Nathaniel lifts his face from the carpet and stares into the face of the most dangerous man he’s ever met. Ichirou is crouched over him, the same way he was crouched before Riko seconds before he killed him.

He speaks slowly and coldly, as careless as Nathaniel had been careful early. This is not a man who needs to watch his words, and he knows it. “You have bitten the hand of our family once before. You are only lucky that the one you injured is lying dead before you. Do you know what I will do if I think you are wasting my time? I will kill everyone who has ever stood beside you and make it last a lifetime.”

Nathaniel lowers his face again and murmurs, heart beginning to thud hard with hope, “I understand, Lord Moriyama.”

“Eighty percent of your earnings for the entirety of your career will be sufficient,” Ichirou says finally. “I expect similar tithes from Day and Moreau, considering our family funded their training. If you fail to make the cut after graduation, your life is forfeit and you will be executed. Do you understand?”

Nathaniel had thought that he was pressed close to the floor before; now he curls tighter about his knees, trying to express his gratitude through his pathetic groveling. He doesn’t have the pride left to feel any shame, though. Almost breathless with hope, Nathaniel whispers, “I understand, Lord Moriyama.”

* * *

They let him leave.

Nathaniel keeps his head low to the ground as Ichirou and his retenue leave the room, and only dares to lift it when he’s sure that the young Lord has left. Then he gets up and heads back down the hall, into the elevator and the empty arena below.

He’s free.

There’s still a Moriyama collar around his neck, but it’s much looser than the one he wore while at Evermore. As long as he can go pro, he can go wherever he  _ wants. _

He’s  _ free. _

The thought takes him by surprise, and he stops dead in his tracks, because what is supposed to do with  _ that?  _ He misses the Foxes but he doubts they’ll let him come back, after everything that’s happened. He supposes that he can join Jean, but—

He cuts off that line of thought before he loses it.  _ Get your stuff first, get back to Evermore. Then worry about what happens next. _

But when he comes back to the locker room, he’s met by what he can only describe as a scene.

“Get out of our locker room,” Engle sneers, but he’s sallow and small compared to Matt, who towers more than a half a foot over him, and Kevin, whose recent victory against his nightmare is making him look three times his usual size. Other Ravens are hovering nearby, but they look lost without Riko to guide them.

Joshua is standing behind Matt’s left side, and Dan is directly to his right. The other Foxes are gathered behind him, making a blockade of bright orange that lights up the usually grim locker room.

“We’re not leaving until we see him!” Matt growls back.

It’s Andrew, leaning casually in the doorway, who notices him first. “Neil.”

Nathaniel gapes at him, stunned.

The Foxes all turn as one, and Nicky shouts, “Neil!”

The Ravens all shift and look at each other, obviously recognizing that there’s something significant about Nathaniel showing up without Riko, even if they don’t understand why.

Before Nathaniel can say anything, someone shoves him aside and stands before the Foxes. Andrew is immediately between him and the person—Tetsuji—like his presence can keep Tetsuji from touching him again.

Tetsuji’s gaze flickers over the Foxes dully, and then he says to the Ravens, “Pack up. We’re leaving.”

Engle wavers, brows drawing together in confusion. “But master, what about—”

“We’re  _ leaving,”  _ Tetsuji repeats, and the Ravens all give each other tight, guarded looks before moving to collect their things.

Tetsuji turns and glances at Nathaniel out of the corner of his eye, just for a second. Then he faces forward again, expression inscrutable, as though he didn’t just see his nephew brutally murdered before his eyes. Nathaniel wonders if he’s sad, if he’ll mourn. He’s not so sure. Tetsuji has never seemed to care about anyone or anything other than himself.

The Foxes part to let the Ravens slink out of the locker room. Tetsuji doesn’t look at Nathaniel, and neither do the Ravens, so he decides to lean against the wall and watch. He’s never following another order from Tetsuji if he doesn’t have to, even if it means he’s suddenly uncertain as to whether or not he’ll be getting a ride home. Or anywhere.

The presence at his side moves into view. He looks over and catches Andrew’s hazel eyes, dark and startlingly clear without the haze of drugs.

“Stay,” Andrew says.

Nathaniel breathes in the sharp smell of cigarette smoke, shifts his weight from one foot to another, and doesn’t move from the doorway of the locker room. He just watches as the Ravens stream out, until there’s no one left except for Tetsuji.

Tetsuji breathes out harshly through his nose. Then he turns to Nathaniel and says, “Your contract ends here.”

He turns on his heel and leaves, just a dark, retreating form in the distance, nebulous and ephemeral as the Nest.

Nathaniel can’t breathe. It’s the only thing he has time to realize before Nicky throws himself at Nathaniel with an excited shriek. Nathaniel freezes—

And then Andrew is there, bodily shoving Nicky off of Nathaniel and to the floor. “Don’t  _ touch  _ him,” he snarls, fists clenched by his sides.

“Woah, hey!” Matt says, lifting his hands in a placating gesture. “Easy, Andrew. We’re just excited to see him.”

“You should probably give him some space,” Kevin says quietly. Nathaniel’s wide eyes meet his, and they’re far too sad, far too understanding. “Right, Nathaniel?”

Nathaniel bows his head the same time Matt asks, “Who’s Nathaniel?”

It’s dead quiet for a second, the others looking at Nathaniel expectantly, Nathaniel unwilling to speak.  _ Who’s Nathaniel?  _ He can’t fault Matt for ignorance, but it’s a more loaded question than he knows.

So after a couple of moments he takes a deep breath and says, “It...looks like I don’t have a ride home.”

The Foxes all glance at each other at the glossover, but they must be so relieved to see him that they don’t push it. Instead, Nicky starts forward, pauses when Andrew lets out a warning noise, and then settles for canting his hip to one side and looking at Nathaniel like he’s an idiot.

“Uh,” Nicky scoffs. “ _ Yeah,  _ you do.”

“What he  _ means _ to say is that there’s always a seat for you on the bus,” Allison cuts in smoothly, gently punching Nicky in the shoulder.

What Nathaniel really wants to ask at this point is  _ when the hell did this happen?  _ Because last time he checked, on principle the Foxes didn’t get along. Renee had the upperclassmen, Andrew kept the monsters, and the two groups didn’t interact except for a major event like, you know, someone  _ dying. _

Nathaniel shakes himself.  _ Not important.  _ “Thanks. I’ll grab my stuff.”

He hurries the rest of the way into the locker room and scoops up his duffel bag, light as it ever is. His chest twinges when he remembers that a couple of months ago, he had more earthly possessions than could fit into the bag. The Ravens have trimmed that part of him until there’s only the bare bones left behind.

_ Jean never told me where my binder was,  _ he realizes, hesitating.

Nathaniel steps out into the hall and finally looks up into Renee’s face, avoiding the gazes of the others. She’s been trying to meet his eye ever since he met the Foxes, but he hasn’t been willing to face her. He’s hoping she won’t be able to tell what happened to him after she left him behind. He doesn’t resent it. He was the one who insisted that he should stay behind, he was the one who had to reap what he sowed. But in the darkest hours of the night when he could barely move for the pain, he thought,  _ you should have pushed harder. _

He wets his lips and asks, “Can I borrow a phone?”

Thankfully she doesn’t ask questions, just steps forward and hands him her phone. Nathaniel opens it and scrolls down in his contact list until he reaches Jean’s name.

Then he hesitates.

They haven’t talked in almost two weeks. Jean’s probably frantic with worry; Nathaniel would bet that he probably tried calling after the first week of radio silence. The out of service message would’ve scared him to hell and back.

But he needs that binder.

He takes a deep breath and hits  _ call. _

Jean picks up after the third ring, like he’s been waiting at his phone. “Hello? Renee?” He asks, a note of worry in his tone.

Nathaniel can’t speak for a second, too overwhelmed by the sound of the person who’d saved his life. Jean is the one who held his hand through his agony, who helped him resurface from the ashes and rise again.  _ Jean.  _ He wants to chant the name like a prayer.

“Jean,” he whispers.  _ “It’s me.” _

There’s a disbelieving pause, and then a tentative and breathless, “Nathaniel?”

_ “It’s me,”  _ Nathaniel repeats.

“Oh my fucking god.” The exclamation escapes in a low gust. Nathaniel laughs involuntarily at the unexpected words. “ _ Nathaniel, you—on TV, Riko tried to—and then I was  _ so sure  _ that you were dead, you didn’t appear after the game, I thought he’d finally killed you—” _

_ “He’s going to have to try a lot harder to do that,”  _ Nathaniel says wryly. The encounter with Riko and Ichirou slams into him, and he looks up at Kevin. The other man looks back, eyebrows furrowed. He has no idea.  _ “Where’s my binder?” _

Jean lets out a noise of understanding, and tells him.

Then, Nathaniel catches Kevin’s gaze again, but holds it.  _ “Also, you should know. Big brother solved our problems for us.” _

Kevin freezes.

_ “...what?”  _ Jean asks.

Nathaniel spells it out, slow and deliberate, heart pounding in his chest. The deal he made with the devil that freed all three of them from Evermore, permanently. The other Foxes are confused but silent as Nathaniel talks, as though sensing that this is something important. He wishes he had a bit more privacy, but it’s important that Jean knows this, right now.

Jean is quiet. Kevin has deflated from his post-game high and is now shaky and pale beneath the sheen of grime and sweat. He slowly sits on the floor and pushes his hair back from his face, once, twice. Then he says, “I...need a drink.”

Andrew looks from Kevin to Nathaniel, and something about the way his eyes are set makes Nathaniel think that he’s going to get thoroughly interrogated later.

“ _ Right,”  _ Jean says faintly, terrible and small. Nathaniel desperately wishes to be there, to wrap Jean up in his arms and let him fall apart in relative comfort.  _ “Right.” _

_ “You’re free, Jean,”  _ Nathaniel reiterates, because he knows that this is something that Jean does not believe yet. He may never believe it, may spend the rest of his life trapped in a cage of his own mind’s creation. But it’s  _ true,  _ and Nathaniel wishes so desperately that Jean will be able to grasp it in his hands and live as he hasn’t for so many years.

Jean lets out a wounded sound and hangs up the phone.

Kevin is still sitting on the floor, looking fit to shatter apart. The other Foxes have made themselves comfortable as well, expressions ranging between bored, fascinated, and worried. The only other person still standing is Andrew, who seems unwilling to leave Nathaniel’s side any time soon.

Nathaniel looks at them for a second. The Foxes.

_ My Foxes,  _ a little voice in his head whispers. He shoves the voice away.  _ Don’t get ahead of yourself. _

“I—” He bites down on his words, his courage withering when the Foxes eyes all hone in on him. “I’ll...tell you everything when we get back at Palmetto. No lies this time, okay?”

Andrew lets out a quiet snort behind him. Nathaniel turns and fixes him with a look. “I mean it.”

“We believe you,” Dan responds quietly, and when he turns to look at her again her dark eyes are bright and warm. “We can wait a bit longer.”

Nathaniel bows his head, indulging in his relief for a second.

Then he lifts his head and says, “I just need to get something. Can you wait another couple of minutes?”

“Hurry up,” Andrew says unexpectedly. Nathaniel turns to look at him, but his face is blank and unreadable. “I’m sick of this place.”

Nathaniel snorts and drops his duffel bag at Andrew’s feet before heading off. He tries not to think about how strange it is that he doesn’t encounter any other Ravens the entire time.

* * *

It’s quiet the entire ride back. Nathaniel’s not sure if it’s exhaustion or lingering tension, but the Foxes mostly sleep.

Except for one.

Nathaniel almost leaps out of his skin when someone sits down in front of him. Andrew, one row behind him, opens one hazel eye to assess who it is before closing it again.

Nathaniel’s not so sure about the lack of threat. He has vague memories of Joshua Graham from the two weeks at Edgar Allan, and none of them are fond.

“Hi,” Joshua whispers, folding his arms over the back of the seat. “How’re you holding up?”

Nathaniel shrugs warily and glances at Andrew again. The other man hasn’t reacted, which wouldn’t happen if Joshua meant him harm,  _ but— _

“Listen,” Joshua sighs, and Nathaniel’s gaze snaps forward again. “I owe you an apology.”

“What?” Nathaniel asks blankly.

And he looks at Joshua, really sees him instead of getting stuck on the sharp cut of him, the Nest that’s been pounded into his flesh and blood. His pale brown eyes are calmer than he remembers, face quiet and thoughtful. There’s no wrath in him, at least not as intense as it is in an active Raven, but there’s a sort of melancholy pressed into his frame.

He’s…

“I hurt you at the Nest,” he says plainly, and Nathaniel’s taken aback by the bluntness of that statement. “It was wrong, and I’m so fucking sorry.” He takes a quick breath, just enough to show Nathaniel how much this confession is digging deep. “You don’t have to forgive me, but I’d like it if you could. I’m a Fox now too, after all.”

His lip quirks up into a small, derisive smile, and just like that Nathaniel understands.

The Nest gets into your head, sinks its claws deep into your brain and  _ squeezes  _ until there’s nothing of the original person left. The only reason Kevin thought to escape was because Riko took everything from him. Nathaniel has come to learn how insidious it is over the past couple of months.

He didn’t enter the Nest as Nathaniel Wesninski, after all.

Even so, his most vivid memories of those pale brown eyes are clouded by shame, humiliation, and pain.

“I—” Nathaniel begins, trying to pick his words carefully. It seems he’s used up all his mental capacity on his encounter with Ichirou, though. “I...understand. But it—I can’t—”

Joshua seems to know where he’s going even before he finishes. He half rises to his feet, the self-deprecating smile deepening, and raises a placating hand. “It’s fine. I understand.”

Nathaniel falls silent, relieved. Joshua gives him a curt nod, and heads back to his seat.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for: panic attacks, nightmares

**Nathaniel**

Nathaniel wakes up, and immediately knows that something is wrong. He pushes himself outright, ignoring the screaming pain of his wounds, quickly taking stock of his situation.

First of all, he’s in a strange bed, when he last remembers falling asleep on the bus. Second, he doesn’t recognize this room; it’s not his room at Edgar Allan, nor is it his room at Palmetto state, and—

No, wait. He _does_ recognize this room.

Nathaniel’s eyes widen, and his breath catches in his throat, because if he’s where he _thinks_ he is—

He throws the blankets off and scrambles to his feet, the carpet plush and warm against his toes. Using the wall to support himself, Nathaniel limps out of the room, pausing in the hall to get his bearings. He sees a guiding light spilling out from a doorway, and he immediately heads toward it, sweat beginning to form at his temples, and he sees—

Wymack and Abby are sitting at the kitchen table of Abby’s house, drinks steaming on the table in front of them. Wymack is wearing a zip-up sweater over his wifebeater, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, worry creasing his brow. Abby is clad in a soft oatmeal cardigan, her hair pulled into a knot at the top of her head. Her hand is covering Wymack’s in what looks to be a gesture of support.

Wymack sees him first, eyes widening as he half-rises to his feet. At Wymack’s reaction Abby twists around in her seat, and her hand coming up to cover her mouth.

“Neil,” Wymack murmurs.

Nathaniel lets out a strangled, wounded sound and sinks to his knees, legs too weak to support the weight of his relief. Wymack is immediately there, kneeling in front of Nathaniel but not touching him, reassuringly solid.

“What do you need?” he asks, and only the smallest hint of urgency bleeds through.

Nathaniel shakes his head wordlessly. _He_ doesn’t even know what he needs. But almost without his permission, his hand reaches up and snags the cuff of Wymack’s sleeve, a silent plea—

Wymack’s expression hardens. He reaches forward, and despite how awkward his position is, he wraps Nathaniel up into a warm, firm hug. He smells familiar, like sweat and faintly of Abby’s lavender-scented laundry detergent, and the fabric of his sweater is warm and _real_ beneath Nathaniel’s fingertips.

Nathaniel stares blankly into space for all of two seconds, hands clutching Wymack’s arms, before dissolving into quiet, relieved tears.

* * *

Several hours later, after a shower and some food, Nathaniel feels a little more human. Even so, he’s not so sure he feels ready to come clean to the Foxes. He _knows_ he promised them honesty, but…

He’s scared.

It’s too late, though. Nathaniel had insisted that Wymack and Abby call the Foxes over, despite their recommendations to rest for a few more days. It’s not that he doesn’t think that he could use it; he just wants to see the Foxes again, even to just explain why he suddenly up and left.

They deserve that much.

Nathaniel almost jerks out of his skin when he hears a knock on the front door.

Abby, sitting next to him at the dinner table, favors him with a questioning look. “Last chance to back out.”

Nathaniel shakes his head, clutching his mug of warm milk closer to his chest. “I’m fine. Let them in.”

“I almost want to tell them to leave when you say shit like that,” Wymack responds. He rolls his eyes at the look on Nathaniel’s face, but obligingly gets up and goes to let the team in.

“If you want them to leave at any point, we can tell them to leave,” Abby says gently. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

 _You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do._ He knows what the words mean, knows that the phrase is in English, but they don’t make any sense. He stares at Abby blankly, and he feels strange, like two tectonic plates rubbing together, scraping, unable to create any sort of resolution.

He puts the sensation to the side to study later as the Foxes all stream into the kitchen, filling it with their clamor. Nathaniel tenses and hunches over, keeping an eye out in case one of them tries to hug or touch him.

“Neil!” Matt says breathlessly. To Nathaniel’s surprise he pauses in the middle of the kitchen and rocks back and forth on his heels like an impatient child. He continues with all the earnesty in the world, “It’s so good to see you.”

“We’re so glad to have you back,” Renee says, leaning against the counter. Nathaniel blinks at her owlishly and she quirks a smile in response.

One by one, the Foxes greet him but stay pressed up against the sides of the room, giving Nathaniel a wide berth. Slowly, he comes to the realization that someone must have told them to keep their hands to themselves. The thought makes him breathe a sigh of relief and relax his grip on the mug.

Then Andrew enters the room. His eyes scan the occupants, before settling on Nathaniel. For a second Nathaniel thinks that Andrew’s going to say something, but he only walks forward and settles against the counter next to Kevin. Nathaniel lets his gaze linger for a moment longer, before looking away.

“So,” Nathaniel begins.

Dan cuts him off before he can get any further. “Neil, we just want to make sure that you’re okay with this, especially so soon.”

“We’re happy that you want to talk to us,” Renee continues, “But we don’t want you to feel obligated.”

“I mean, _I_ think he should feel obligated,” Aaron interjects mildly. Nicky whacks him on the arm while the rest of the Foxes all ignore him.

Nathaniel wets his lips, rubbing the thick fabric of his sweater between his fingertips. “I—I want to. I’ve wanted to tell you everything since the beginning. I just couldn’t.”

“Alright,” Dan says, nodding. “If you’re sure.”

Nathaniel meets Andrew’s steady, hazel stare. There’s almost a challenge there, but he’s not sure what Andrew is challenging him to do.

Nathaniel straightens to his full height and takes a deep, fortifying breath. “I’m sure.”

And then he tells them. Tells them about being born the son of the Butcher of Baltimore, being raised with his father’s displeasure gouged into his skin. Tells them about being handed a knife and taught how to make pain last, how to make a punishment _last._ He tells them about Exy, and how the game brought him to life and destroyed his future in one fatal transaction.

He talks of his years on the run, of moving from country to country, hiding his name, his face. He tells them a little about his mother, who smoked like she knew she wouldn’t live long enough to regret it, and loved him just enough. He talks about the Butcher’s men finding them in Seattle, and driving toward the Western Seaboard as quickly as possible without realizing that there was a corpse in the backseat.

He talks about sitting on cold metal bleachers in Millport, and about Coach Hernandez telling him that someone was there to see him.

Then he falls silent, his voice spent. They know the rest.

Matt is the first to speak. He lets out a sharp breath, the sound as loud as a gunshot in the quiet room, and scrubs his hands over his face. At length he says, “Shit, Neil.”

Dan barks a broken laugh. “You can say that again.”

“It’s always Riko and that fucking family, isn’t it?” Allison asks, shaking her head slowly in disbelief. “Why hasn’t anyone killed him yet?”

“Someone has, actually,” Nathaniel says quietly. “After the end of the game. Riko isn’t a problem for us anymore.” He tilts his head toward Kevin. “Kevin and I—we’re free now. We don’t have to worry about Riko anymore.”

There’s another long, heavy silence. Nathaniel stares hard into his mug, his heart in his throat, anxious for their reactions.

If they tell him to go, then he’ll go. Disappear like he was always meant to.

“Good riddance,” someone says.

As the Foxes all chorus their agreements Nathaniel looks up, scanning the faces until he finds who spoke. Joshua quirks a small, reassuring smile back at him.

The tension in Nathaniel’s chest slowly unknots.

* * *

**Andrew**

Andrew stands to the left of Neil, watching apathetically as Neil clumsily dodges the well-wishes of the other Foxes, tension creeping into his frame. Neil’s pointless anxiety over whether or not the Foxes would welcome him back is alleviated, but Andrew can tell that being surrounded and scrutinized like this must be absolutely maddening for Neil, especially after so long trying to fly under the radar.

Andrew doubts that Neil would ever admit to it, though. He’ll hunch into himself and hate being watched while insisting that he’s fine, just _fine._ Andrew is so fucking sick of Neil saying that.

Andrew meets Renee’s eyes. She nods her head, then pushes away from the wall and heads toward Abby, who is conversing quietly with Wymack in a corner. Andrew forces his shoulders to relax, letting his arms fall to his sides.

Renee whispers something into Abby’s ear. Abby’s gaze flickers to Neil and her mouth clenches, finally noticing the situation. She makes a comment to Wymack, who narrows his eyes and sets his jaw.

“Okay, guys,” Wymack’s voice cuts through the conversation, and they all fall silent. “Abby needs to give Neil a checkup.”

“Aw,” Nicky whines, “But _Coach.”_

“You can come back and see him tomorrow,” Wymack says, waving dismissively at the Foxes. “Go. Scram.”

“I’m fine,” Neil says, though it doesn’t sound very confident.

“You don’t get an opinion,” Wymack tells him firmly.

Neil’s face twists up in frustration. Then he glances at Andrew and quickly adds, “Fine. But Andrew stays.”

Andrew turns and hands Kevin the keys to his car. Kevin takes them reflexively. Then he glances down at what he’s holding and looks up at Andrew in surprise. “Wait, what?”

Allison turns and smirks viciously at Matt and Dan. “You both owe me money. Pay up.”

Matt points an accusing finger at her. “This proves nothing.”

“For the love of—” Wymack throws his hands into the air. “I don’t want to hear about it, I don’t want to see it. Get _out_ of here! Except for you, you little shit.” This is directed toward Andrew, who is decidedly unimpressed.

Ten minutes later, after much grumbling and dawdling, the house is finally silent. Abby and Wymack shoot Andrew a knowing look, before disappearing down the hall, presumably to give them some privacy to talk. Andrew is annoyed at the assumption that he _wants_ to talk to Neil, and is even more annoyed about the fact that they’re not entirely wrong.

Neil is staring deeply into his mug, looking small and disheveled in his oversized sweater. Andrew waits for a second, before pulling out the chair next to him and sitting down.

Neil shifts at the noise, but otherwise doesn’t react.

“Are the Moriyamas going to be a problem?” Andrew asks.

“Hm?” Neil looks up, his blue eyes distant. Then he blinks and focuses, his whole expression sharpening. He’s intense in a way Andrew hasn’t seen in a long time, not since Neil took Andrew’s hand and pressed it up against his scars. “Oh, no. I made a deal with Ichirou. He gets a share of my profits if I go pro. It applies to Jean and Kevin, too.”

“Do you enjoy selling yourself out?”

Neil barks out a low, choked laugh that sounds nowhere close to amused. “Every second I played with the Ravens, I paid for it in blood. This price isn’t so hard to bear. This is close enough to freedom for me.”

Andrew looks at him then, _really_ looks at him. He’s been too distracted by the persistent limp and the 4 that was carved into his face to notice that something else is very, very wrong.

This Neil is a far cry from the defiant, reckless man who left PSU four months ago. He should have noticed it earlier, that Neil was a quiet, cornered slip of a creature, ducking his head to try and prevent people from hurting him again, but resigned to abuse nonetheless.

“Neil,” Andrew begins, then shakes his head. He’s not even sure that this man _is_ Neil anymore. “Abram.”

Neil jerks, that pale, haunted blue gaze widening in disbelief, and Andrew knows that he’s right. This isn’t the same man who left Palmetto State five months ago.

“I—” That gaze flickers and falls to his lap, and then he wets his lips and rubs his hands on his pants. “Yeah.”

Andrew lets out a low sigh. “Is that who you are now? Is that who you want to be?”

“No.” A shake of the head. “No, it’s what I had to do to—to _survive._ I had to be Nathaniel. There was no other way.”

“Fine,” Andrew says. “But leave Nathaniel at the Nest. You don’t need him anymore.”

It’s like Andrew’s very words are enough to turn him to stone, like he’s trying to remember how to move again. Andrew knows how to recognize the look of a person who reached their breaking point, shattered, and put themselves together again through sheer force of will. He knows, because he’s had to do it himself.

“Can I—” His voice is barely above a whisper. “Can I really be Neil again?”

“What did I just say?” Andrew asks, though it lacks any bite. “Stay.”

Lips are bitten, the sleeves of his sweater are torn, and his head bows over the table. His breath comes low and harsh, wracking his whole body with the force of it. He looks as though he’s about to fall apart all over again, or tear himself apart from the inside. Considering his track record, Andrew’s almost positive that he could manage it.

“Breathe,” Andrew says.

He does not.

 _Fuck,_ Andrew thinks.

“Neil, yes or no?” he asks urgently.

“Yes.”

Andrew gets out of his chair and carefully takes his elbows, lowering him to the ground so he can curl up on the floor. When he goes to pull away, Andrew hears the choked sound and watches as hands reach out to him, though they stop an inch from his skin. Even in the throes of a panic attack he won’t touch Andrew without permission.

 _You,_ Andrew thinks helplessly, unable to express what that little gesture means to him, even in his own head. The only thing he _can_ do is sit on the floor next to him and grip his forearms, supporting the other man as he shakes and shivers.

Finally, his breathing evens out, and the shivering stops. He droops bonelessly, exhausted, before untangling his fingers from Andrew’s sleeves. They do nothing but breathe for a long time, unwilling to break the silence, but equally unwilling to move away.

Andrew is not the one to break the silence. “I want my keys.”

“They’re at the dorm,” Andrew tells him. “You can have them when you get back.”

Andrew hears a low sigh, like the rush of the ocean against the sea, or the wind through the trees, and he watches as Neil Josten puts himself back together, piece by piece, until he is a Fox, a runner, and defiant to the bone.

“Okay,” Neil says, and pushes himself to his feet.

* * *

**Neil**

_Nathaniel is in the Nest again._

_He looks around at the dark walls, the oppressive lack of windows. It hasn’t changed since he was last here, although he can’t recall the last time he set foot in these halls. A month? A year? His mind strains and stretches, but he feels sluggish somehow, unable to think straight._

_“Junior,” a voice says._

_Nathaniel whips around, but there’s nobody there. Not Riko, not his father, not Tetsuji, just an endless stretch behind him. He can see the court perfectly from here, at the end of the tunnel, like a siren’s call._

_He takes a step toward it._

_“Nathaniel,” another voice says, and he freezes in his tracks._

_When he turns around, though, there’s still no one there. He takes a deep, fortifying breath, and takes another step toward the court._

_The ground explodes upward beneath his feet, and Nathan and Riko’s hands stretch toward him, their eyes wide and demonic. There’s a bullet wound in the side of Riko’s head but he’s not dead,_ he’s not dead, _and the knife in Nathan’s hand flashes as it sinks into Nathaniel’s side. There’s no pain though, and that’s somehow more terrifying than anything else._

_Nathaniel tries to burst into a run, tries to escape to the court as he always has, as he did all those months ago, but Riko’s wrapped around his legs. He topples to the ground, screaming as the knife buries itself a little deeper into his side._

_“No!” he screams, hands scrabbling against the ground, reaching desperately for that golden vision, that seducing court. Hands try to grab at his shoulders, but he thrashes desperately to dislodge them. “Let me go, let me—”_

Awareness slams into him like a slap to the face. He gasps desperately, trying to get air back into his lungs, but then a firm hand is shoving his head between his knees. All he can feel is Riko’s hand, tight as a collar and twice as heavy.

 _“Don’t touch me!”_ he shouts, shoving whoever it is away and scrabbling forward until he hits a wall. He huddles against it, hiding his head under his arms, prepared for whatever comes next, whether it be a blow or a knife.

There’s a couple of seconds of silence. Neil shudders and shakes under the weight of his nightmares, sucking desperately against the back of his teeth to prevent his sobs from escaping.

Then a low, calm voice says, “Neil.”

Neil shudders through a relieved breath. _Andrew._

Another few moments of silence. Neil is finally aware enough to smell the sharp, grounding scent of cigarettes. Then there’s a thump against the wall next to Neil, and when he looks up Andrew is beside him, staring into the middle distance.

Curled up against the wall, half-buried in his blankets, they remain like that while Neil slowly sinks back into reality. Bit by bit he begins to relax, begins to be able to parse consciousness from the nightmare.

Finally he’s able to look up. The shared living area is completely empty even though it’s two in the morning. There are still blankets and pillows strewn all over the floor, the only evidence that the whole team had been having a sleepover last night. “Did I wake everyone?”

Andrew snorts, but there’s no humor in it. “Just about.”

Neil frowns, and then admits quietly—because he needs to say it, needs to fill the space with what might be an apology, what might be an excuse, “Sorry for… reacting like that. Riko used to grab the back of my neck when he wanted to show me who—who _owned_ me—” He breaks off, unable to continue. His skin is buzzing again, stomach twisting into knots, and he thinks, _If only I’d—_

Andrew finally looks at him and snaps, “Stop that.”

“Stop what? I haven’t done anything.”

“Stop _looking_ like that,” Andrew insists, like that makes any more sense than the last statement. “That martyr complex of yours is what got you in trouble in the first place.”

Neil’s frown deepens into a scowl. “I’m not a martyr.”

“You are a pipe dream,” Andrew tells him with strange finality, but continues before Neil can even attempt to figure out what _that_ meant. This conversation is just getting stranger and stranger. “I told you to leave Nathaniel in Evermore.”

Finally Neil feels the quiet, flickering urge to smile, and he gives in, just a little. “I’m a bad listener.”

They’re quiet for a few more seconds, and then Andrew scoots off the bed. The streetlights bleed through the blinds, sending bars of light off the sharp planes of his face. He looks almost transparent, like he’s existing on the finest blade edge of reality.

The thought makes Neil’s heart clench.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Andrew repeats, not looking at him.

Neil shakes his head slowly, befuddled. “You know, one day you’ll say something that actually makes sense.”

Andrew looks away.

* * *

**Kevin**

Kevin stands outside of Wymack’s office after practice, his helmet tucked under one arm, his shoulders painfully tense beneath his jersey.

Nathaniel—no, _Neil,_ Kevin corrects—had come back to the dorms yesterday after almost a week of recuperating at Abby’s. He looks far better than he had when he’d first gotten back; less hunted, less skittish. He still jumps at unexpected noises, and he can’t be approached from behind without him scaring the crap out of him, but he looks less like he’s going to break into a million pieces.

Kevin isn’t ashamed to admit that he thinks that it was worth it. His, Jean’s, and Neil’s freedom, all in exchange for four months of Neil’s life.

It was a price that Kevin didn’t have to pay, though. In exchange he reaps the benefits of months of torture, of agony, of being beaten down again and again.

He owes Neil. Neil may not even realize it, but Andrew certainly does. He gives Kevin long, contemptuous glances whenever Neil isn’t looking, like he’s measuring the value of Kevin’s debt and is waiting for the worst possible second to collect. Kevin knows that it’s only a matter of time before Neil figures it out.

 _You haven’t told him yet?_ Neil had asked him yesterday, eyebrows raising in surprise, like he’d expected better of Kevin. Neil hasn’t called him a coward once since he’s gotten back, and his eyes are so dark and so knowing that Kevin has to look away sometimes to catch his breath.

Kevin owes Neil. Neil lived in hell for four months. The least he can do is stop being a coward.

He takes a deep breath, and knocks on the door.

Wymack opens it a second later, raising his eyebrows when he sees who it is. “Kevin,” he says. “This is a surprise.”

“Do you have a minute to talk?” Kevin asks, shifting from one foot to the other.

Wymack looks down at his watch, then shrugs and steps aside to let Kevin in. “Come on.”

Even though Kevin has been in this office a million times, his gaze flickers over the certificates, the bookshelf, the messy desk. His gaze pauses when he notices something new, though: a shiny golden trophy placed on the floor beside Wymack’s desk. It’s a massive thing, with three tiers and the figure of an Exy player sitting on top. It looks heavy. Solid.

Wymack comes up beside him. “It’s too damn big to put anywhere else. I’m thinking about ordering a shelf so we can put it in the team room.”

“Allison talked about getting one,” Kevin says faintly, staring at the massive thing. He’s too distracted by the pride in Wymack’s voice, the way he folds his arms and puffs out his chest. “You might want to hold off until she makes up her mind.” He feels like he’s floating far away from himself, a spectator in this moment. _He is proud of us,_ he thinks. For a moment he wonders if this is enough, if his father being within arms reach, so proud it hurts, is enough.

He knows it is not.

“Coach,” Kevin croaks. “I have something that I need to tell you.”


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for: andrew reaching out to touch neil, and neil misunderstanding the gesture and panicking

**Renee**

Renee knocks on Matt and Neil’s door, a tupperware container clutched in her other hand. She waits patiently as there’s a quiet thump, and then another, and then Matt is opening the door.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hi,” Renee replies, peering over his shoulder to get a look into the room. Neil’s still-gaunt face peers up from where he’s folded himself into the chair at his desk, frowning when he sees who it is. “I have a present for Neil.”

Matt looks down at the container in her hands, his eyes lighting up. “Oooo. Is that army soup?”

“Yes,” Renee says, affecting a prim tone and bodily shoving the door open to make her way inside. Neil turns around so he can face her without craning his neck. “And no, you’re not allowed to have any,” she tells Matt.

“Awwww,” Matt whines but smiles as he obligingly backs away, leaning against the wall. “I’m hurt.”

“Tough,” Renee responds, and presses the container into Neil’s hands. “Neil, this is for you.”

“Thanks,” Neil says, looking vaguely confused at the present. “What’s it for?”

Renee’s gaze flickers to his sharp cheekbones, his bony wrists, the exhaustion in his face. Neil had come to Palmetto State looking a little underfed, which makes sense considering what she now knows about his past. He’d filled out a bit by Christmas, but the Nest had taken its toll. “No reason,” she says cryptically. “I can’t give my friend a present?”

Neil opens his mouth like he’s planning on interrogating her, probably because he senses that she has ulterior motives. Matt cuts in before he can get a word out, though. “You should feel honored, Neil. Renee’s army soup is the  _ best.” _

“I—” Neil glances at Renee, then back at Matt, then at Renee again. Then he sighs, apparently sensing that he’s fighting a losing battle. “Thanks, Renee.”

“You’re welcome, Neil,” Renee responds, beaming.

* * *

**Allison**

After practice, Allison sidles up to Neil as they’re walking out of the sports building. Andrew, who’s walking on Neil’s other side, shoots her a dry, unimpressed look, but says nothing. Allison ignores him. “Hey, Neil.”

“Allison,” Neil says, giving her a suspicious look.

“I have been told that your education in modern culture has been severely lacking,” she informs him. “Is it true that you’ve never seen a Disney movie?”

“Uh...” Neil furrows his eyebrows in confusion. “No. My mother didn’t see much point in that sort of thing.”

Well that is just  _ sad. _ However, Allison is used to the fact that Neil’s had a horrible, deprived childhood, so she doesn’t let it phase her. “Well, the rest of the team and I—” Andrew raises an eyebrow at that, probably because no one has talked to him about anything. Rude people do not get opinions, though, so Allison just continues blithely, “—were planning a Disney movie marathon this weekend. Want to come?”

Neil just looks even more befuddled at that, like he finds the idea of an invitation incomprehensible. He glances at Andrew, who is now staring pointedly ahead, and then back at Renee. “Sure, I guess,” Neil says. “I didn’t have anything else planned.”

“Great,” Allison says. “Andrew, you’re invited too.”

Andrew glares at her. Allison waves, and then falls back to walk with the rest of the upperclassmen.

“Mission accomplished,” she tells them. Matt grins and gives her a fistbump.

* * *

**Matt**

At the movie night on Saturday, Matt comes prepared.

He digs all the blankets out of his closet, the ones his mom had insisted that he take, and lays them out on the floor. He stacks all the pillows in the apartment in the center (including the kind of gross, wine-stained one he’d found under the couch), before taking the corners of the blankets and tying them over the top.

Neil exits the bathroom, his hair freshly washed, steam billowing from the open door, and freezes dead in his tracks. “What the hell is  _ that?” _

“It’s movie night tonight,” Matt explains.

Neil waits a moment, and then another, like he’s expecting Matt to go into further detail. When Matt doesn’t, his nose crinkles up, and he adds,  _ “And?” _

“This is an ingenious trick that allows me to carry dozens of blankets and pillows all at the same time.” Matt leans over, grabs the knot in the blankets, and pulls the whole thing over his shoulder. “See?”

Neil looks decidedly unimpressed by this. “Are we going?”

Matt laughs and nods. He settles the blanket and pillow pouch over his shoulder before following Neil down the hall and into Renee, Allison, and Dan’s room. The rest of the team is already situated, sprawled out on the floor, bowls filled with popcorn.

“Neil!” Nicky called out, patting the bit of floor next to him with a grin. “Come sit by me.”

Neil gives Aaron, who is  _ also  _ sitting next to Nicky, a dubious look. “I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.”

“Here, take a blanket,” Matt says, dumping the mass from his shoulder and untying it. The blankets and pillows spill out onto the carpet, covering Nicky, Aaron, Kevin, and Andrew in a slough of warm fabric.

_ “Hey!”  _ Nicky wails, shoving the pile off. Aaron, Andrew, and Kevin are mostly silent except for some grumbling. Joshua, lounging off to one side in a beanbag chair, snorts quietly.

Matt picks up two of the discarded blankets and a pillow and hands them to Neil. “Here you go.”

“Thanks,” Neil says, and after some deliberation lays his stuff out next to Andrew, who only shuffles over to give him more space.

Dan shoots Matt a thumbs up, while Renee and Allison nod approvingly.

* * *

**Neil**

Neil sits on the bleachers, a notepad resting on his knees and his hand clutching his pencil. The Foxes are doing a four-on-four mock scrimmage, with Joshua, Andrew, Nicky, and Dan on one side, and Renee, Matt, Kevin, and Allison on the other. Aaron is on the bench, having just subbed out for Matt, but he’ll get back on the court as soon as the next person gets tired. Neil doesn’t have the option to set foot on the court, apparently, and it’s not something he’s happy with.

They’ve improved a  _ lot.  _ Neil knew that before—they  _ had  _ to have improved to be able to beat the Ravens—but that assessment was somewhat skewed by the rush of the game and the agony of his own wounds.

He recognizes some Raven drills—complicated footwork, precise accuracy, clear communication—but they haven’t lost what made them Foxes. Their neat new skills are accompanied by the typical ferocity and chaos that characterized the old team. It’s fascinating to watch.

“What do you think?” Wymack asks, walking up the bleachers to stand next to him.

“I recognize Kevin’s influence,” Neil says dryly. “He convinced you to let him teach the Foxes Raven drills?”

Wymack twitches at Kevin’s name, his lips turning down at the corners. It’s been several days since Kevin apparently told Wymack that he was his father, and it’s been horrendously awkward since then. The tension has even carried into the dorms; Dan almost lost it at Kevin, throwing a new wrench in the upperclassmen-lowerclassmen relations.

“Not exactly,” Wymack hedges. “I don’t know all of the details, but he apparently strong-armed the entire team into attending nightly practices.”

Neil snorts. He’ll have to ask Andrew how Kevin managed  _ that  _ later.

“I have a couple of suggestions,” Neil adds, handing Wymack the notepad. The older man flips through the pages, scanning the cramped handwriting and the messy diagrams. “The team is a lot better, but there are still areas where they could improve.”

“A couple?” Wymack echoes incredulously, before shaking his head and patting the pages down so they’re flat again. “Thanks. I’ll go over them in more detail later.”

“Sure.”

“Neil!” someone shouts, and Neil jumps, scrambling for purchase on the bleachers. Adrenaline crashes through his system, and his eyes dart aimlessly for his attacker—

Matt steps into view, holding his hands up in a gesture of surrender. His dark eyes are remorseful beneath his helmet. “Woah! Hey, sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

Dan strides up next to him, taking the stairs two at a time, and punches Matt in the shoulder. “God, Matt, a little sensitivity,  _ please.” _

“I’m fine,” Neil wheezes, settling back down on the bleachers as his heart rate drops back to its normal rhythm. “I’m—hi.”

“Hi,” Matt responds, slowly walking forward and sitting on the bench next to him. “I’m really sorry, Neil. I wasn’t thinking.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Neil insists. “You guys looked good out there.”

“Did we?” Allison asks, shaking her blonde hair out of her helmet. Renee is a step behind her, eyes alert despite the fact that she’s still flushed with exhaustion. “As good as the Ravens?”

“Better,” Neil responds, smiling tentatively at them. They all grin like manics and fistbump each other.

“Alright, you guys stink like shit,” Wymack growls, though his smile belies his tone. “Go take a shower.”

Dan lifts her arms so the sweat patches at her armpits are exposed for the whole world to see. “Aw, coach, don’t you want to hug us first?”

Wymack makes a disgusted face, mock-shooing them away with one hand. “Go on, get.”

“Yes, coach,” Matt says, then gets to his feet and mischievously offers a helping hand to Dan as she walks down the stairs. She grins and almost shoves him over a bench. Allison runs down the stairs after them, not even seeming to notice that she’s left Renee behind.

There’s a pause, where Neil and Wymack look at Renee.

“We’re glad you’re back, Neil,” she says at length. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to put up with a bit of hovering, though.”

“Oh,” Neil says uncomfortably, rubbing his hands up and down his arms. So  _ that’s  _ what that was about.

“Can you tell them to tone it down a little?” Wymack asks gruffly.

Renee smiles faintly at him, like he’s said something amusing, before heading down the stairs to join the rest of the Foxes. Wymack shakes his head in exasperation, scratching at his head.

Then he turns to Neil. “If it really bothers you that much, I can tell them to stop.”

Neil thinks about it for a moment, frowning, recalling all the events of the past week. He’d thought that they were just being friendly when the team had invited him to movie nights and gifted him food. It’s weird to think that the Foxes were being protective just because he’d lived in the Nest for four months.

He turns over the feeling that provokes in him, trying to figure out what it is.

“No, it’s fine,” Neil says finally, shaking his head.

Wymack only hums in response, fixing him with a long, considering look before shaking his head.

* * *

**Dan**

Dan waits patiently in Matt’s truck for Neil to come downstairs, the windows rolled down and the seat reclined. Matt had agreed to let her borrow it when she explained why she needed it. There’s a breeze blowing fresh air over her face, and it smells like Spring.

Fortunately, Neil doesn’t keep her waiting for long. He knocks on the car door, clad in a t-shirt, a zip-up Palmetto hoodie, and a pair of jean shorts. His expression is for the most part relaxed, although there’s a nervous edge to it.

Dan doesn’t take it personally. He’s been wearing that hunted look ever since he got back.

“Where are we going?” Neil asks, sliding into the passenger seat.

“A little diner that makes great shakes. It’s not too far, I promise.”

Neil settles back into the seat. “Okay.”

Dan hits  _ play  _ on the CD player, deciding to risk Matt’s somewhat questionable music taste. The opening strains of a Muse song filter through the speaker, and she lets out a relieved sigh before putting the car in drive and rolling out onto the street.

The drive over is mostly quiet, but not in an awkward way. Neil has never been the most talkative, and after hearing his history Dan isn’t particularly surprised by it.

They get to the diner, and are almost immediately seated in one of the booths. It’s a homey little place, all reds and whites with old-fashioned, chromium counters and soft jazz music playing in the background. Matt fondly calls her old-fashioned, and Dan always corrects him, saying that she just has a fondness for the classics.

“Get whatever you want,” Dan says. “It’s on me.”

Neil opens his mouth like he’s thinking of protesting, but then Dan favors him with a challenging eyebrow, and he shuts it again. He picks up his menu and starts flipping through it, scanning it quickly.

The waiter comes and takes their order, before disappearing into the kitchen.

“So,” Dan begins. “How’ve you been feeling?”

“Uh,” Neil shifts uncomfortably in his seat, probably because he’s almost certainly allergic to talking about his feelings. “Fine.”

Dan rolls her eyes. She’s heard  _ that  _ one before. “Try again.”

Neil wrinkles his nose at her in annoyance. “I  _ am  _ fine, though. There’s nothing for me to be not fine  _ about.” _

Dan lets out an exasperated sigh. Sometimes, she wishes that she could meet the woman who raised this man and shake her until she understands exactly what she did to him.

Unfortunately—or, fortunately for Mary Wesninski—she is dead.

“It’s not about whether or not you have something to be not fine about,” Dan says patiently. “Neil, you just experienced something awful and traumatic. Just because you’re no longer there doesn’t mean that it stops affecting you.”

Neil shakes his head, frustrated. The basket of fries that is placed between them goes ignored. “I don’t want to think about it anymore. It’s done. I just want everyone to forget about it.”

“Too bad,” Dan responds placidly, before deciding that that’s enough with the interrogation. Neil’s in denial about how much it affected him, how much it’s  _ still  _ affecting him, and pushing is only going to drive him away. “Anyway. So. Tell me about Andrew?”

Neil stares at her blankly. “What  _ about  _ Andrew?”

Dan sighs wearily, rubbing her temples. Sometimes, Neil’s complete and utter lack of awareness scares her a little.

* * *

**Neil**

“Yes or no?” Andrew asks, the red light from the sun spilling across his face, casting him half in shadow. The cigarette in his mouth flares to life briefly, and a cloud of acrid smoke drifts through the air. Neil breathes it in, and for once his mother is the last thing on his mind.

“Yes,” Neil says without really thinking about it, because despite everything that’s happened, he still trusts Andrew. That is the foundation on which he builds his new reality. If he can’t trust Andrew, then there’s not a person on this whole planet that he can.

Andrew flicks the cigarette to the side and grinds it beneath his shoe, before reaching across the empty space toward Neil—

He’s not sure how he makes it halfway across the rooftop in the space of less than a second, but he does. His arms are shaking with the effort it takes to hold himself upright, and his lungs are too tight and he can’t  _ breathe. _

Andrew’s frozen in place, hand extended in the empty air. Neil wants to say something to him, to tell him it’s okay, that he’s scared but he doesn’t know why, it  _ wasn’t Andrew,  _ but his vocal chords have all but closed up and he still—can’t— _ breathe— _

Neil lets out a choked wheeze, then a cough, and finally gets air into his starved lungs. Andrew lowers his hand and watches, expressionless (and it’s such a marked change from the drugs, Neil wishes he could appreciate it more), like he’s facing a cornered animal and isn’t sure whether or not it’s going to bite.

“S-sorry,” Neil says when he can, dragging his hand through his bangs. “I don’t—I’m not—”

Andrew is still staring.

“I didn’t think I would—react like this,” he admits, letting his fingers catch on his curls and tugging hard, like the pain is enough to ground him. “I—thought—”

“Stop that. You’re an idiot.” The look Andrew gives him says that Neil is an idiot if he thinks Andrew is going to believe that crap about thinking. Then, with quiet ferocity, “I won’t let you let me be like them. If you have to say no, then say it.”

Neil bites his lip and looks at the ground, feeling frustrated tears prickle at the corner of his eyes. Nathaniel wasn’t so weak. Nathaniel could shoulder the pain and keep going on like nothing was wrong.

Andrew must read something from his face, because he lets out an exasperated sigh. “Do you trust me?”

Neil thinks about it this time.

“Yes,” he says finally, because that hasn’t changed.

Andrew gestures for Neil to come back to the edge of the rooftop. Neil approaches slowly, unusually careful as he drops his feet over the edge and sits at Andrew’s side.

“Yes or no?” Andrew asks again.

He trusts Andrew more than anything. “Yes.”

Andrew doesn’t reach for him this time. Instead, he carefully pushes his hand across the ledge and rests his pinkie finger over Neil’s, so he can easily pull away if he wants to. It’s gentle and warm in all the right ways.

Tension drains from Neil’s shoulders, and he slumps forward with a sigh. Closes his eyes.

Andrew watches his face for a second, gauging his reaction, before relaxing minutely. He turns back to face the sunset, face calm.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello everyone.
> 
> so first of all, id like to thank everyone who's read until this point. i really appreciate that. i was overwhelmed by the positive feedback this fic got. so thank you, thank you , thank you.
> 
> id like to again thank my beta, wishbonetea. she's a miracle worker. id also like to thank my artist, tigerjawed, whose art was an inspiration to me.
> 
> i like to think that ive grown a lot over the course of this fic. i think this might be the longest multichapter fic that ive ever finished, and im vey proud of it. here's hoping that im able to finish more of them!
> 
> warnings in this chapter include a brief, non-explicit discussion of canonical sexual abuse.
> 
> and without further ado: chapter 20 of take to the wing.

**Joshua**

“Kettle corn is the  _ worst,”  _ Joshua says vehemently, watching as Matt takes the bag from the microwave and shakes it.

“You have  _ clearly _ had a deprived childhood,” Matt says, pointing an accusing finger at him. “Kettle corn is the superior popcorn.”

Joshua shakes his head, despairing over Matt’s taste buds. “ _ Please. _ Butter popcorn is the  _ only  _ popcorn. What’s the point if it’s sweet?”

“I resent that,” Matt says. “Hey, watch this.”

Then he throws a piece of popcorn into the air and attempts to catch it on his tongue. Joshua lets out a surprised laugh as Matt misses by a mile, the kernal bouncing off of his hair and to the floor.

Matt tries and fails again, and Joshua is torn between laughter and horror. “No! God, stop! This is painful to watch. Here, let me try.”

And that is when Nicky bursts into the room.

“Guys!” Nicky gasps out, eyes wild. “Guys, Neil’s gone. We can’t find him anywhere.”

“What?” Matt asks, ignoring the piece of popcorn as it falls onto his face. “ _ When?” _

Nicky wrings his hands anxiously, pacing back and forth, his shoes thudding heavily against the tile. “Almost two  _ hours  _ ago. We didn’t think anything of it because sometimes—he just needs to  _ run,  _ you know? But he’s been gone for too long, we can’t—”

“Let me get my coat,” Matt says grimly, rising to his feet with a determined set in his jaw.

“I’ll come too,” Joshua says, putting the popcorn bag on the counter and running to get his shoes.

They pause just long enough to grab the girls, before spilling out onto the street. Andrew and Kevin have already left, and Nicky quickly outlines the area they were planning on covering (the Foxes’ home court). Matt nods, then he and Dan make a beeline for his truck, just in case Neil is too far away for them to catch up to on foot. Renee and Allison decide to go east, while Nicky and Aaron go west.

Joshua thinks about it for a second.  _ Where would a runner go just to run? _

He looks up the northerly street directly in front of the dorms, the one that seems to stretch on forever. It turns into a highway after five miles or so. It never seems to run out.

Joshua turns north, and starts jogging.

He jogs for almost thirty minutes, undisturbed except for the Foxes texting the groupchat for updates.  _ We can’t find him,  _ is the general consensus. Forty minutes in, Joshua begins to wonder if Neil is already back home, wondering where the hell the entire team has gone.

He’s tired and sweaty, out of breath and ready to turn around, when he sees a small figure sitting on the front steps of a tall, stately building. His jog slows into a quick walk as he studies the person, trying to figure out who it is. It’s too dark to make out any distinct features, especially considering that the person is wearing a deep hood that casts his whole face in shadow.

Then he sees the logo on the back of the sweater, and lets out a sigh of relief.

“Neil!” Joshua calls, cupping his hands so his voice carries.

The figure jumps and looks up, and sure enough, two blue eyes peer out from the darkness, so bright they’re almost luminous. Neil studies him as he approaches, before removing his hood and waving a hand in tentative greeting.

“Neil, we’ve been looking all  _ over  _ for you,” Joshua berates, slowly settling onto the step beside the man. A cursory examination shows that there’s a wet patch on his back, and the tread has come off the bottom of one of his shoes. “It’s been three hours. Why didn’t you take your phone?”

“Oh,” Neil rasps, staring down at his shoes. “I didn’t notice.”

Joshua frowns at the broken shoe. “Is your foot okay?”

Neil shrugs wordlessly.

Joshua lets out a sigh and takes out his phone, texting the Foxes his location. Then he puts it away and folds his arms over his knees, now curiously examining the surrounding area.

They’re on the first few steps of an old library. The brick is pitted and cracked, and the garden overgrown with weeds. It looks old enough to be considered a historic building, but the glass on the windows have been smashed, so it was obviously abandoned a long time ago.

Joshua glances at Neil, still bent over his knees, the profile of his face framed by the light of the nearby streetlamp. He looks tired and wan, the dark smudges standing out beneath his eyes like someone painted them on.

They haven’t talked. Joshua has been giving Neil plenty of space, even though it ached for him to leave things as they were. He wants to talk to Neil, to judge the man face to face, rather than from fond tidbits that the Foxes tell him and from poisonous asides from the Ravens.

Joshua bites his tongue. He promised that he would give Neil time, and he’s not about to go back on his word.

Then, to Joshua’s surprise, Neil says something. It’s too quiet to make out, though, so Joshua frowns and says, “Sorry?”

“Did you like it?” Neil repeats, “The Nest.”

Joshua frowns, thinking about that. _ Did you enjoy the Nest?  _ That’s a loaded question, and one he’s not sure he wants to answer.

Then he glances at Neil, and realizes that it’s far, far too late. Neil has already witnessed his greatest shame. He may not have laid a hand on Neil, but there are other ways to hurt people.

“Yes and no,” Joshua says honestly. “Yes, because I knew that I was part of one of the best teams in the division. We were...we were powerful. And if you were considered to be skilled, well.” He shrugs dismissively before continuing. “And no, because…”

He pauses, unable to look at Neil.  _ Be honest. _

“Actually, that’s a lie. I didn’t  _ not  _ enjoy being at the Nest. I was skilled, so I didn’t see a problem with mistreating those who were less skilled than me, or if Riko said they deserved it.” He feels a hot flush rise to his cheeks, mortified by the person he once was.

He wants to say,  _ The Nest gets in your head.  _ He wants to say,  _ The Nest turns you into a monster.  _ He wants to say,  _ It wasn’t my fault. _

But that would be making excuses, and Joshua refuses to hide from his mistakes. If the Nest turned him into a monster, it was because he had the potential for it all along.

“I didn’t enjoy hurting people,” he says, because it’s true, “But I didn’t stop people from being hurt, either.”

“Huh,” Neil says. He’s looking at Joshua for the first time since that time on the bus, gaze calm and considering. He doesn’t look scared, at least. Then he shakes his head and gestures to the broken shoe, to his unfamiliar surroundings. “I thought that running would help. I just ended up getting lost instead.”

“That’s fine. Someone will always come looking for you,” Joshua says, squinting into the middle distance as a familiar car rolls up the street.  _ Andrew,  _ he thinks, and gets to his feet. “Just try not to do it too often.”

Neil nods. “Okay.”

* * *

**Andrew**

Neil steps out onto the court as a Fox for the first time in five months, and the Foxes are  _ exultant. _

Andrew watches as they run up to Neil, clacking their sticks against his, asking for permission before giving his helmet a solid, fond shake. They seem ecstatic to have him back, that they can finally put the Nest behind them and play as a team again.

Andrew’s not so sure about that. Neil hides it well to the others, but it’s obvious to Andrew that the Nest still haunts him. He’s as manic as ever, though: four months of playing Exy beneath the dark, starless sky of Edgar Allan with a team that hated him, and the junkie is still eager to take to the court.

“Josten!” Wymack shouts from the benches. Neil turns around, tapping the butt of his stick impatiently against the wooden floor. “Take it easy out there, okay? I don’t want to have to take you back to see Abby.”

“Yes, Coach,” Neil calls back, in that voice that implies that he’s going to do the exact opposite of what he’s just been told.

Wymack must hear it too, because he lets out a barely audible grumble and shakes his head. He doesn’t say anything else to Neil, though, which means that he’s figured out the futility of trying to get him to express restraint in any capacity.

Dan does her best to control him, at least. She gives Neil an unimpressed side-eye when he starts running laps with the others before firmly telling him that  _ he’s only running two laps, stop if something starts hurting. No, don’t give me that look. _

Andrew shoves Neil’s shoulder with his own as soon as he notices the idiot starting in on his third lap. Neil shoots Andrew a betrayed look, but then, two steps behind them, Matt says, “Hey, wait a minute. Neil, this is your third lap. Get off the track.”

Andrew smirks at Neil, whose betrayed look melts into a glower. It has the desired effect, though, because he peels away from the rest of the group and heads into the court to do some stretches while they finish up.

All throughout practice, the rest of the Foxes valiantly try to keep Neil from overdoing it, while Neil resists their efforts with quiet, annoying persistence. It helps that whenever Andrew notices one of the Foxes getting too lenient with Neil, he shoots a ball into their ankles so hard they almost fall over.

Their efforts are for the most part successful, in that by the end of practice Neil is grinning murderously, while the Foxes are smugly satisfied. Wymack looks over the scene with a dead, weary gaze, before shaking his head in exasperation and waving them all back to the locker rooms.

In the locker rooms, Renee turns to Neil and asks, “How are you feeling, Neil?”

“I’m fine,” Neil responds immediately. He still sounds annoyed, but at least he doesn’t look like he’s thinking of stabbing someone anymore. “I’ve played with worse injuries.”

“Oh, shut  _ up,”  _ Nicky shakes his head in exasperation. “God. I can’t  _ even _ with you.”

“What he  _ means  _ to say,” Dan says dryly, “Is that just because you  _ have  _ played with worse doesn’t mean you  _ should.  _ Honestly this time:  _ how are you feeling, Neil?” _

Neil hesitates for a second, narrowing his eyes at her, before grudgingly admitting, “My shoulder hurts a little.”

Matt swears. “I can drive you to Abby’s.” He turns and raises an eyebrow at Andrew. “Unless you’d rather drive him?”

“I’ll drive him,” Andrew says flatly. Matt has a soft spot for Neil, and Andrew doesn’t the taller man not to be tricked by Neil’s stupid face into thinking that he’s less hurt than he is.

Neil looks between the two of them in bemusement. “I don’t get a say in this?”

“No,” Andrew says without looking up.

Aaron snorts and says to Andrew, “You’re lucky that he doesn’t mind all your fussing.”

The locker room goes silent. One by one, the rest of the Foxes turn to look at Aaron, their expressions a mixture of horror and glee. Andrew stares at his twin as well, and for a solid five seconds he is literally speechless.

“I’m sorry,” Nicky says, interrupting the quiet. “Did you just say that Andrew was  _ fussing?” _

“Well he  _ is,”  _ Aaron snaps, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Andrew’s hand twitches as a look of shocked understanding crosses Neil’s face. “I’m going to have bruises all over my ankles tomorrow morning.”

“Is  _ that  _ what that was about?” Allison asks incredulously. “Are you  _ kidding  _ me?”

“Fussing,” Joshua whispers in awe, an almost starry look in his eyes.

Finally, Andrew turns to Aaron and says, “I was not  _ fussing. _ You can walk home. _ ”  _ Then, before anyone else can field him with any more wild accusations, he turns to Neil and snaps, “Come on. Let’s go.”

Neil blinks a couple of times, still looking bemused by the world at large, before nodding and getting to his feet. “Sure, okay.”

As they’re leaving the locker room, Andrew just catches Joshua saying, “ _ Fussing.  _ Oh, that’s so romantic.”

_ You’re next, Graham,  _ Andrew thinks darkly.

They walk out to the car, and now that Andrew’s looking for it, he can see the way Neil is gingerly holding his shoulder. Neil’s face is set in an uncomfortable scowl, but Andrew thinks that it’s more out of frustration at having been caught with an injury, than the injury itself.

“Question,” Andrew says over the top of the car. “Who was the one who told you to keep your injuries to yourself?”

Neil shoots him a surprised look, but then he shrugs with his good shoulder and says, “My mother. We didn’t have time to sit and let stuff heal.”

Andrew remembers the feeling of the numerous, ropey scars under his hand, and feels a faint pang of regret that he didn’t have the opportunity to go after Mary Hatford the same way he’d gone after Tilda.

When he moves to get in the car, however, Neil stops him by taking his turn. “Why do you hate the word please?”

_ Ah.  _ Andrew has been waiting for that one, ever since Neil used it to force Andrew to break their deal.

“He said he would stop if I said it,” Andrew says.

Neil falls silent. This is one of the first times that Andrew has ever seen Neil completely and totally speechless, and he observes the phenomenon with blank fascination. His skin feels too tight, like it’s been stretched across his bones.

“You believed him?”

“I was seven. I believed him.”

“Seven,” Neil repeats dumbly.

Andrew ignores the horror on Neil’s face and slides into the car. Neil gets into the passenger seat, and Andrew starts the car in silence. The drive to Abby’s is almost ten minutes from the court, and they don’t say a word for the first five.

Then Neil says, “Andrew, are you really...is…” he gestures aimlessly at himself, at the space between them. “Is this okay?”

It takes Andrew a second to realize what he’s asking about. Then he remembers the  _ yes and no’s,  _ the way he’s been letting Neil encroach on his personal space. The nights where Neil’s nightmares get the better of him, and Andrew lets Neil creep up against his shoulder.

He also remembers that moment in Abby’s house, when Neil’s hands had hovered but not touched, even in the throes of a panic attack. The way Neil breathes out a  _ yes or no  _ before curling against Andrew’s side. The soft overlap of pinkies in the light of the sinking sun.

He breathes a sigh through his nose. “What would you do if I said no?”

“Stop,” Neil says immediately, like any other answer would be ludicrous.

“Then yes.”

Neil looks at Andrew for a moment, searching the profile of his face. Then his expression softens slightly, and he nods and leans back into his seat.

* * *

**Joshua**

A couple of days after Neil’s first practice, there comes a knock on the door.

Matt is playing a video game, long form sprawled across the couch. Neil is in his room, presumably doing homework, or maybe researching new and creative ways to insult people. Either way, Joshua says, “I’ll get it,” closes his textbook, and opens the door.

Jean Moreau is on the other side.

For a second they stare at each other blankly, speechless with surprise. Then Jean’s eyes narrow with fury, and Joshua’s heart sinks into his stomach, and he feels the blood drain from his face.  _ Oh no. _

“What the hell are  _ you  _ still doing here?” Jean spits, fists clenched, stepping into Joshua’s space. Joshua stumbles backward, unwilling to touch the ex-Raven. Neil would never forgive him if he hurt Jean.

“Moreau?” Matt asks, alarmed, pausing the game and getting to his feet. “Wait! Joshua’s good now, he’s a Fox!”

“I don’t  _ believe  _ you!” Jean says, shaking his head. He’s too incensed to listen to reason right now, and Joshua can’t blame him. They were on the same team for two and a half years, after all. “Fly home, little Raven.”

Joshua feels like he’s just been punched in the stomach. He knows that he deserves it, he  _ knows  _ that Jean’s just looking out for Neil, but it still hurts. He’s a Fox now, but he’ll always have the stain of being a Raven in his past. He wets his lips. “Jean, I—”

“Jean,” a voice says from behind them.

They all turn around. Neil stands in the door that leads to their bedroom, one hand resting on the frame, his eyes wide with shock. The shock quickly fades, however, giving way to a relieved smile, and then Neil is crossing the kitchen into Jean’s open arms.

They cling to each other, Neil’s face buried into Jean’s shoulder, silent except for their quiet, ragged breathing. Jean’s hands clench and loosen on the fabric of Neil’s shirt, a helpless sort of gesture that makes Joshua’s heart twist. He looks away, feeling as though he’s just witnessed something very intimate.

Finally, Jean pulls away and fixes Joshua with another glare. He rattles something off in quick, angry French. Neil glances at Joshua, then shakes his head and says something that sounds reassuring. Jean drags his gaze away from Joshua’s face and asks something, his voice laced with disbelief.

“Um,” Matt says. “Do you two want some privacy…?”

Jean jumps, apparently having forgotten that Matt was there at all. In English he says, very firmly, “That would be best.”

“Right,” Matt mutters. “Joshua, come on.”

A little shaken, Joshua nods and follows Matt into their shared bedroom. Joshua’s been sleeping on an air mattress that Abby had procured from her basement, and he collapses onto it, covering his face with one arm. God, that had  _ sucked. _

Matt closes the door, and then Joshua is bounced into the air as Matt sits on the bed next to him. At length, Matt says, “How are you feeling?”

Joshua sighs and uncovers his face, folding his hands over his chest. The ceiling stares back at him, covered in cracks and odd spots. “It’s nothing I don’t deserve.”

“You’re going to have to stop punishing yourself for it eventually,” Matt says reasonably. “It’s not good for you.”

“I know,” Joshua mutters, rolling onto his side so he’s facing away from Matt. He picks at a loose thread on his blanket, scowling. “It’s just—the Nest was two years of my life, you know? It’s hard to just...let it go.”

“Yeah,” Matt concedes, voice frustrated. There’s a pause, and then he adds, sounding surprised, “Wow, a Fox who’s honest about how they’re feeling. I feel like I’ve just seen a unicorn or something.”

Joshua lets out a surprised bark of laughter, then turns over and punches Matt in the shoulder. “Come on, you guys aren’t  _ that  _ bad. Neil, Kevin and the twins are outliers and should  _ not  _ be counted.”

Matt chuckles and raises his hands in surrender. “Good point.”

Then he pauses. Frowns. Puts his hands on the air mattress and bounces up and down a couple of times.

“What am I  _ sitting  _ on?” He mutters.

Joshua’s heart stops. “Um—”

But it’s too late. Matt gets off the air mattress and lifts the side, shoving his arm underneath. He pulls out the weathered paperback book and stares at it while Joshua covers his face with his hands and tries to sink into the floor.

“Uh...Joshua,” Matt says.

“Shut up,” Joshua mutters, mortified. He  _ knew  _ that he should’ve put it back in his suitcase.

“Oh my God,” Matt says gleefully, holding up the Harlequin novel, like Joshua doesn’t already know what it is. “The Anne Butler series? Oh,  _ Joshua.  _ This explains so  _ much.” _

“I said  _ shut up!”  _ Joshua whines, and then pauses, going over what Matt just said. He lowers his hands and stares at Matt incredulously. “Wait, you know the Anne Butler series?”

“Bud,” Matt says, shaking his head sagely, “I read the Anne Butler series in  _ high school.  _ The ending fucked me up.”

Joshua sits up straight and points an accusing finger at Matt. “Do  _ not  _ spoil this for me! I’m five chapters from the end!” He shakes his head in disbelief. “I can’t believe you read these too. I would never have guessed.”

“You’ve seen my bookshelf,” Matt says, raising an amused eyebrow.

“I don’t know,” Joshua shrugs. “I thought they were Dan’s.”

They both still for a moment, staring at each other.

“That sounded less stupid in my head,” Joshua admits.

Matt shakes his head, laughing at him.

* * *

**Neil**

It’s been almost three weeks since that first practice, and Neil finally feels as though things are falling back into place.

He feels stronger, and his wounds no longer ache all through practice. The Foxes have stopped treating him like he’s going to fall apart if he gets hit, although they’re still respectful of his personal space. Neil has learned to stop seeing the gesture as pity, and now appreciates it for what it is.

He  _ does  _ kind of miss taking notes for Wymack, which is what he did every time he was forced to sit out of practice. There was something satisfying about analyzing a play, figuring out where it went wrong, and then fixing it. He’s afraid that if he admits that out loud, though, Wymack will make him sit out of practice again.

Neil calls Jean every once in a while, just to check up on him as he settles in with the Trojans. Jean speaks highly of the Trojan captain—or, well, as highly as he can speak of anyone. “He’s alright,” is the kindest thing that Neil has ever heard Jean say about anyone.

Jean still has a hard time accepting that Joshua is now permanently on the team, but at the very least he keeps his opinions to himself. Neil appreciates the discretion. Neil’s actually starting to come around to Joshua. He’s surprisingly considerate when he’s not antagonizing Kevin.

Neil had been worried about _ that  _ for all of two seconds before Andrew had explained that that was Joshua and Kevin’s way of getting along. Neil doesn’t quite get it, but whatever works for them.

Neil thinks that things have mostly smoothed over between Kevin and Wymack. They’re acting like they did before Kevin said anything, except now they meet up in Wymack’s office sometimes. Dan’s forgiven Kevin, at least, which Neil figures is a good enough sign as any.

“Good work today, guys,” Wymack says as they gather around him, panting and sweating. “If we keep this up, we’ll do well during the next season. Any questions?”

Nicky raises a hand.

Wymack favors him with a deadpan look. “Any  _ relevant  _ questions?”

Nicky grins and puts his hand back down.

“Dismissed!” Wymack waves them all away. “Josten, meet me in my office afterward.”

“Oooo,” Nicky choruses, “Someone’s in  _ trouble.” _

Wymack rolls his eyes.

Neil glances questioningly over at Dan, but she only shrugs at him. Neil frowns at that, before deciding that it’s probably nothing serious.

Even so, worry niggles in the back of his head. What if this is the moment that Wymack tells him that his ties to the mafia and Nathan Wesninski make him too dangerous to keep around?

Fifteen minutes later, freshly showered, he knocks on Wymack’s door and lets himself inside. Wymack is seated behind his desk, studying a notepad, his forehead creased in concentration. Neil squints at the back of the notepad, trying to figure out whether or not it’s one of his, but he can’t tell from here.

“Hey, Coach,” Neil says, taking in the room as he does so. It’s a bit claustrophobic, with no windows or exits except for the door behind him. He fleetingly wishes that he could talk to Wymack while keeping the entrance in view.

Wymack doesn’t look up from the notebook when he says, “Josten. Sit.”

“Okay,” Neil does as he’s told and folds his hands over his knees.

Wymack doesn’t seem to notice how nervous Neil is; he casually sets the notepad down on the desk between them and pushes back in his seat, lounging a little. “So,” he starts. “I’ve been doing some thinking.”

Neil raises an encouraging eyebrow.

“I’ve been looking for people to take leadership roles next year.” Wymack taps the discarded notepad. Neil lets his gaze flicker to it, and is only then able to recognize his handwriting scrawled all over it. “And I picked you.”

Neil hums absentmindedly, looking back up at Wymack. And then he registers what he’s just been told, and his eyes widen in shock. “Wait, what?”

“Vice captain,” Wymack continues blithely, as though Neil hadn’t spoken. “And you’ll be captain after Dan leaves.”

“No!” Neil says, half-rising to his feet in alarm. What is Wymack  _ thinking?  _ Neil’s past is shrouded in shadow and soaked in blood; he’d half expected to be kicked off the team. And Wymack wants to make him  _ captain?  _ “You’re insane. Why aren’t you asking Matt or Kevin?”

“Talented players,” Wymack allows, tapping his fingers against his desk thoughtfully. “But they’re not what this team needs. Has anyone told you about the night practices that Kevin held?”

“All the more reason that  _ Kevin  _ should be in charge,” Neil argues.

“Kevin by himself could not rally the team,” Wymack says, firmly but not unkindly. “He may have run the practices, but Dan told me that they went because he convinced them to rally for  _ you. _ They united behind you, when you weren’t even here. You’re something special, Neil. I don’t intend to let that go to waste.”

Neil searches desperately for the words that will convince Wymack that this is a terrible idea. “You know what I  _ am,  _ Coach.”

“I don’t give a shit about what you are,” Wymack growls, shaking his head. “I only care about what you’re going to become. And I think that you could become a great captain.”

“I can’t captain  _ anyone, _ ” Neil gets the sinking feeling that he’s losing this argument. “I won’t.”

“This isn’t a democracy. I make the rules, and you get to deal with it. You need Exy, Neil,” Wymack says. “Anyone with eyes could see that. And the Foxes, they need  _ you.  _ Give me one good reason why you’d want to turn this down.”

And the thing is—

Neil can’t.

“I—” He shakes his head, the weight of a future he’s never had to contemplate before crashing down on him. He feels unsteady, like his whole worldview is being tilted sideways.

_ Vice-captain, captain, pro.  _ A year ago, his most immediate life plans had been limited to  _ run, Exy, death. _

“I’ll think about it,” Neil says faintly.

“Fine,” Wymack says, in a tone that implies that he doesn’t really care what Neil thinks about it. “Now go.”

Neil bows his head and heads out the door.

* * *

For once, Neil is the first one on the roof. He sits on the edge, staring out over the city, turned golden and beautiful in the sunlight. It’s a blatant, gilded lie; the glow hides all the dirty patches, the darkness, the ever-present shadows.

Most days that’s what Neil feels like. Like if you scrape away the top layer of skin you’ll find Nathaniel Abram Wesninski just beneath, his father’s legacy carved into his skin, his family’s knives in his smile. The Nest had brought Nathaniel to the surface as a survival mechanism, and the urge to fall back on that comfort is almost unbearable some days. Nathaniel is a much better survivor than reckless, defiant Neil, after all.

Neil Josten, vice-captain of the Palmetto State University Foxes. A future that is not a life on the run, or a path paved by misery.

He can’t wrap his head around it.

The door behind him opens and shuts. Neil tenses, but then relaxes when he recognizes the cadence of the footsteps.

Sure enough, a few seconds later Andrew is swinging his legs over the side of the building, settling beside Neil. He takes a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and offers Neil one, who gratefully accepts. Andrew lights the cigarette, and they sit like that for a few minutes, passing it between the two of them.

“You went to the extra practices with the others,” Neil says at length. It’s not a question, but it’s not an affirmation either.

Andrew takes a drag on the cigarette before handing it back to Neil. “I did.”

Neil hums, favoring Andrew with a considering look, the cigarette resting between two fingers. The other man stares back apathetically, as though the idea of him going out of his way to attend the extra practices means nothing.

“I thought you hated Exy,” Neil probes.

“Hate is a strong word,” Andrew corrects. “I don’t care about it.”

“You don’t care about Exy.” There’s a contradiction here. Neil can almost taste it. “But you hate me.”

There’s a split second when Andrew looks at Neil—and there’s no expression on his face, of course there isn’t, but Neil feels his gaze all the way down to his  _ bones.  _ His breath catches in his chest.

“Every inch of you,” Andrew says, looking away. Neil takes a few seconds to remember how to breathe.

“Am I at 100 percent now?”

Andrew hums in confirmation, and Neil stares over the campus, turning Andrew’s words over in his mind, examining them from every angle. He feels as though his worldview has just been shifted a couple of degrees to the left.

“At the Nest, writing those emails,” Neil starts. “I could pretend I was still Neil.” Andrew favors him with the intensity of his full attention, but Neil continues before Andrew has the chance to reply. “But those emails—I could pretend that I was still Neil, that I could go back to his life someday.” He chokes on a laugh and folds his arms across his chest. “I never actually thought that I could be...be me again.”

Andrew flicks the cigarette butt to the concrete, letting a cloud of smoke trickle from his nose. “You’re still in a cage, even if it’s of your own design. Is this really what you wanted?”

Neil doesn’t even have to think about it. “Yes.”

Andrew only turns to face forward again.

“What about you?” Neil asks. “Is this what you wanted, too?”

Andrew hesitates just a second too long before he says, “I don’t want anything.”

“And you call me a liar,” Neil lets a smile cross his face. Then he adds compulsively, “You should go pro with me. We can all play at the Olympics together. We’ll be unstoppable.”

Andrew can’t quite tamp down his surprise at that. His eyebrows lift ever-so-slightly, and his hazel eyes dart searchingly to Neil. “That’s your obsession, not mine.”

“Borrow it until you find something of your own.”  _ Vice-captain, captain, pro. _ He’s not sure he can imagine any of it without Andrew there beside him. “Come with me.”

Andrew’s gaze flickers to Neil’s mouth. “Yes or no?”

Neil has heard that question over and over again these past three weeks, and he has never once regretted it. He trusts Andrew more than anyone. Saying yes is as easy as breathing.

Andrew leans in. Neil closes his eyes, and trusts Andrew not to let him fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _fin._

**Author's Note:**

> check out my artist, tigerjawed on both tumblr and twitter. here's a link to their art: 
> 
> https://tigerjawed.tumblr.com/  
> https://twitter.com/tigerjawed
> 
> Edit: posting will be every day until April 4 except for a one day break after ch10


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